


10 Steps

by nutalexfanfic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Romantic Comedy, CEO Lexa, Clexa Endgame, Dapper Lexa, F/F, F/M, I mean let's be real it's a romcom, Maybe a little angst, Multi, Not that funny, Romance, They're so dumb and blind, brief mentions of Flarke, hopeless Clarke, romcom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutalexfanfic/pseuds/nutalexfanfic
Summary: Clarke is determined to end her string of unfulfilling one-night stands, but she can’t quite seem to make anyone stay. She enlists Octavia’s help who immediately turns her over to her friend, Lexa, the only person she knows who is a master of manipulating emotion. Clarke is not hard on the eyes, she's eager and besides, Lexa owes Octavia a favor. So she agrees and puts Clarke through her 10 Steps bootcamp and promises to stop sleeping around for an entire month if it doesn’t work. Which, or course, is never going to happen...





	1. Hook them and throw them back. Leave them intrigued.

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt: Can you do a clexa au, romcom style? Clexa endgame, please!

She’s aware of the concept, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Steps. In fact, she saw the movie—the one based on the concept—with Octavia not long ago despite her pride because Octavia was relentless.

 

And it seems pretty easy, pretty fool proof. After all, there are plenty of people she’d been with that she was ready to lose in _one_ step, let alone 10.

 

How to _Get_ a Guy in Ten Steps, on the other hand, was slightly more difficult. Even harder? Getting Clarke to figure it out. But she’d promised her that she could do it. She’d get Clarke a steady guy (or girl, as she’d been assured was fine too) in ten days or Lexa would stop sleeping with girl’s from the local bar for a month as penance. And since that most certainly was _not_ going to happen…she was determined. That and well, she owed Octavia a favor. Helping her friend’s roommate get a steady guy or girl would be an easy way to repay her.

 

Clarke, on the other hand, seemed everything but determined. She showed up grumpy to the bars, dressed down and acted annoyed with everything and everyone. She refused to go shopping with Lexa (for that perfect shirt. Clarke said she just wanted to see her boobs…well, she wasn’t wrong). She challenged Lexa at every turn, but Lexa would be damned if she wasn’t going to win this one.

 

It’s what brought her to this moment. Picture this: it’s way too early in the morning—sort of that weird time when you’re not sure if it’s the day you started or the next already. So, it’s somewhere around 3AM, the club is way too crowded—that kind of crowded that makes even the air feel like it’s sweating—and the music is so loud it has long since ceased to sound like anything coherent. It’s just a thudding base line at this point that somewhat blindly leads her hips as they crash into Clarke.

 

And then there’s that. Clarke and her are locked at the hips, both disinterested but determined. The blonde-haired boy across the bar hadn’t been able to stop staring at Clarke the moment she walked in. He was Lexa’s perfect target: all doe-eyed and full of almost enough liquor in him to get the courage to talk to the blonde bombshell he’d been ogling.

 

Lexa had been on her third beer and just about up to HERE with it all before he finally made his way over.

 

Wick, as he so called himself, was smooth and dorky all at the same time. Definitely Clarke’s type. But light handed in his attempts—which almost never worked for Clarke. Her friend’s friend was beautiful and intelligent, truly a lovely person (probably), but it was quickly becoming apparent over the last week that picking up on flirtation cues was not one of Clarke's strong suits. He was gone, back to his quiet corner across the bar, by the end of five minutes, and Clarke was almost as exasperated as Lexa.

 

“Let’s just go home,” she’d huffed.

 

“I said ten steps. This is step one. Just stay the course, Clarke. It’ll work. Now, follow me.”

 

And that is how she ended up here, with Clarke smashed again her front side as they dance their way through an alcohol-fueled attempt at making Wick jealous. Lexa is just beginning to get comfortable with it, just beginning to get into the groove of what she does best, when Clarke turns around and loops her arms around her neck.

 

“This is stupid,” she shouts over the music.

 

Lexa rolls her eyes. “He hasn’t taken his eyes off of you. He’ll come over.”

 

“He won’t.”

 

Lexa could have growled at Clarke’s bull-headed stubbornness. She needed to expedite the process, and expedite it fast—especially with the pretty red-head over at the bar following her every move.

 

“Put your hands, here,” she gruffs out, grabbing Clarke’s hands and placing them on her hips.

 

“That’s going to turn him away! It looks like you own me!”

 

Lexa retracts like she’s been slapped and rolls her eyes. “Well, now you’ve made it weird.”

 

Clarke just chuckles and pulls Lexa back towards her, relenting. She can’t ignore the undeniable success Lexa has with women, so maybe she’ll humor her. Just a bit longer. “I’m just telling it like it is. I’ll give you ten more minutes before I’m out of here.”

 

It takes five. Wick comes lumbering over, suddenly all wiles and winks, filled to the brim with confidence. Lexa suspects the Long Island in his hand.

 

“Can I take over?”

 

Lexa and Clarke share a glance. There’s a hint of nerves in Clarke’s wide eyes that makes the blue sparkle out against the darkness of the—

 

Lexa blinks and backs away. “Yeah, have fun kids.” She nods in encouragement to Clarke and urges her to step in. From then, all she has eyes for is that red-head at the bar.

 

//

 

That is of course until Clarke comes stumbling over almost childlike in her excitement. “Lex—hey. Lexa. If you could just—“ Clarke sticks her hand between the two bodies pressed together and pulls at whatever on Lexa she can reach. “Lex—let’s just—uh,” she changes tactics and pulls the stool of the strange red-head back. “There!” She nods triumphantly at her accomplishment and beams at Lexa.

 

Lexa does perhaps the slowest eye roll in history and wipes at her red, swollen lips. “Really?” She’s panting still, eyes coming back into focus in that lazy sort of path the way they did when Octavia had taken the two of them on a “get to know each other” hike, those sharp pupils finally taking back some of that dark green when they found shade to collapse under. Clarke stares, sort of mesmerized in the haze of all the alcohol sloshing around in her stomach, and swipes at her dry lips with her tongue. “Hey.”

 

“Can I help you?”

 

“He wants to take me home.”

 

This startles Lexa back into reality so fast she almost falls off her stool. “No.”

 

“No?”

 

“Absolutely not. What did I tell you about step one?”

 

“You said to get the hook in.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

Clarke huffs and takes the seat of the red-head who’d since given up and moved away. “Is going home with him not the ultimate hook?”

 

“No it’s the opposite of a hook. I swear, Clarke. It’s a good thing you’re pretty.”

 

Clarke’s jaw hits the floor as she smacks Lexa and swipes the girl’s drink just as the bartender is delivering it.

 

“Hey!”

 

“You just called me pretty and dumb. You lose the right to this drink.”

 

“Hey, one of those is a compliment.”

 

“Lexa.”

 

“ _Alright._ ” Lexa succeeds and leans back, folding her arms against her chest. “Back to the point. This is when you _don’t_ go home with him. You get the hook in by leaving him wanting more. They need to be left intrigued.”

 

Clarke chokes and yanks Lexa’s drink away from her mouth. “What the fuck is this?”

 

“A Harlequin and not yours.” Lexa deftly takes it away and takes a generous sip, ‘ah-ing’ for emphasis.  

 

“Disgusting,” Clarke murmurs. She clears her throat. “You said it was like fishing. I’m fishing. I’ve reeled him in, got him hooked, now we go home. That’s what you said.”

 

“No. No, no. I said it’s like _asshole_ fishing. You reel ‘em in, hook them, then throw them the fuck back. They swim away with that little hole in their mouth that hurts like a bitch until they finally decide to do something about it and come find you. That’s the whole point of this, Clarke. You don’t need help getting guys to sleep with you—“

 

“And girls.”

 

“You’re blonde with tits and a great body. What?”

 

“You forgot girls.”

 

Lexa waves her drink around. “Whatever. Guys. Girls. The point is, taking them home isn’t the hard part. You could do that in your sleep. You asked me to help you _get_ someone. As in keep them.”

 

“Yeah, remind me why I asked _you,_ the master of one-night stands?”

 

“Because I’m the best at everything,” she says simply and genuinely. Clarke doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or endeared by her friend of a friend’s constant self-assuredness.

 

“No, I think it’s because Octavia said you were good at manipulating people’s emotions.”

 

Lexa’s eyebrows fly into her hairline for a split second before she can steel herself into apathy. “Octavia’s just bitter because I never called her back.”

 

This time when Clarke chokes, it’s not because of Lexa’s disgusting choice in bitter alcohol. “You slept with _Octavia?_ ”

 

“Years ago. We were young.”

 

Clarke laughs. “You’re still young, big shot. You’re only what, 34?”

 

“30. And I was 17 at the time.”

 

“Oh. _Oh._ Damn.”

 

“Like I said—“ Lexa takes a sip as if it will help, “—young.”

 

“No shit. So you’ve been doing this for nearly _15_ years?”

 

“Doing what?”

 

“The whole no attachment thing.”

 

“Attachment is messy.”

 

“Spoken like a true fuck boy.”

 

“That’s fuck girl, to you.”

 

“So you really have no shame?”

 

Lexa shifts and crosses her arms again. “Why should I? I’m not doing anything wrong.”

 

“Some would argue that.”

 

“Then fuck them,” Lexa snaps, suddenly annoyed and ready to leave. “I tell everyone I take home what I’m about up front. If they don’t like it, they can walk away.”

 

“From that pretty face? Never.” Clarke leans forward and pinches Lexa's alcohol-flushed cheeks in an attempt to mold her back into that relaxed figure of indifference she’d gotten used to and oddly come to feel comfortable around. Seeing Lexa all riled up did something to her she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but she didn’t like it. It felt slippery.

 

Lexa brushes her hand away and signals for another drink.

 

“If I don’t go home with him, what do I do now, then?”

 

“Just chill over here or a bit. He’ll come ask again and then tell him you’re going to call it a night. Tell him you come here on Fridays after work. Then don’t come next Friday, but go the week after.”

 

Clarke contorts her face into shear skepticism. “No way he’s going to hold out on someone like me for two weeks when he can take any of these girls home.”

 

Lexa grabs her coat and slides off the stool. “And that’s exactly why you pick up the kind of guys who fuck and run.”

 

“Jesus, don't be so crude." 

 

“I'm just telling it like it is, Clarke. Seriously. Give yourself more credit. He’ll wait.”

 

“What—“ Clarke dips her head, trying to feign indifference—“would you?”

 

“Would I what?”

 

“Wait.”

 

“Hell yeah.”

 

“Really?”

 

Lexa shrugs on her jacket. “That face and that rack. Sure I would.”

 

Clarke’s not sure where the perplexing mixture of disappointment and pride comes from, but she rolls it away with a roll of her eyes. “And here I was thinking maybe it was my wit.”

 

“Nah. That’s my gig, babe.” Lexa leans in and gives her a quick one armed hug and kiss to the cheek which feels too soft and too warm on Clarke’s skin. They ricochet apart and Lexa shoves her hands in her pockets. “Seriously. Don’t go home with him.”  She whistles at someone behind Clarke and beckons with her head.

 

“Well, what do I do two Fridays from now?”

 

“Call me then. We’ll go from there.”

 

“I’m not gonna see you for 2 weeks?”

 

Lexa grins. “What—gonna miss me?”

 

Clarke shrugs, grinning as well. “You dance well.”

 

The laugh bubbles out of nowhere and surprises her. “Whatever, Griff. Call me in two weeks if you manage to follow directions.”

 

Just as Clarke is about to retort, someone brushes past her, startling her. The red-head effortlessly slides in next to Lexa and smirks. Lexa shoots her an oblivious wink and leaves. Clarke, for at least the fourth maybe fifth time that night, rolls her eyes.

 

//

 

It’s more of a task than it should be to walk away, but Lexa blames it on the five drinks she had tonight. She’s almost through the door when she chances a glance back. Clarke is gone though, probably back at the bar or, knowing her, wandering over to Wick in all her stubborn glory. She swallows, and takes a second longer to squint back into the club.

 

“Hey. Coming?” The red-head pulls on her sleeve and urges her towards the waiting cab.

 

Lexa peels her gaze away and shrugs off whatever it is that made her look back in the first place. “Hm?’

 

“Coming?”

 

Lexa looks back one more time. "Yeah, let’s go.”


	2. Listen. Learn something about them. Make them feel important.

She starts to get antsy around the week and a half mark. She’s distracted. Today especially, though there’s no good reason for it. Octavia gets in more punches than should ever be allowed and the gloating is insufferable. She scowls at her water bottle as if it were the cause of the ache in her ribs and tries to ignore the way Octavia dances around the ring with her hands in the air.

 

“I so won that round,” Octavia sings.

 

“Shut the fuck up before I show you what it really looks like to win a round.”

 

“Damn, who’s got _you_ in a knot?”

 

Lexa tosses her water bottle off to the side and climbs into the ring, rolling her neck and shoulders until they crack and pop. “No one.”

 

“Then what’s got you so—oh wait. Like.   _No one,_ no one?  As in you’re not getting laid?”

 

Lexa scoffs. As if. “What? No. I’m getting laid. Trust me.”

 

“Then what’s eating you, Gilbert Grape?”

 

“Just.” Lexa huffs. “Come on, let’s go.”

 

//

 

Lexa holds up her fists and they bump knuckles before crouching into their respective stances, Lexa up high, commanding and relaxed, Octavia, low and eager.

 

“Seriously, what is it?”

 

Lexa doesn’t answer. She bounces on her toes and waits for Octavia’s inevitable strike because the younger Blake can’t help but strike first, every time. It comes in the form of a left hook, which Lexa easily bats away, countering by kicking at the back of the eager girl’s lunged leg, sending Octavia to the ground.

 

“It’s nothing. Just drop it,” she huffs as she herself drops down on top of her.

 

Octavia nails her in the stomach with a stiff leg just in time to stave off the older and decidedly stronger girl’s attempt at a mount.

 

They both stagger up to their feet and reset, Octavia already reaching out with open hands, looking for the next grab or punch or choke. Lexa just circles calmly, hands near her face but otherwise still.

 

“How’re things with Clarke?”

 

Lexa’s bouncing falters imperceptibly. She notices something in Octavia stance, and dives. In a second, Lexa is on her knees with Octavia head and neck in a vice choke. “I don’t have ‘things’ with Clarke,” she grunts.

 

Octavia taps out and falls to the ground, gasping. “Holy shit that was awesome.” She rubs at her throat and flips onto her back. “You’ve gotta show me how you did that.”

 

“It’s called focus.”

 

Octavia laughs and shakes her head at the white pipes lining their gym ceiling. “You’re so pissy today.”

 

“This is how I always am.”

 

Octavia hums. “Good point. You’re always pissy.”

 

Lexa helps her up and bounces back a few feet, ready to go.

 

“I need a sec.”

 

“We just had a sec.”

 

“Yeah well you just put me in a fucking rear naked choke. I need another sec.”

 

Lexa acquiesces and they settle onto the bleachers surrounding the ring. Lexa pulls out her phone and flips through her texts before shoving it back into her bag, annoyed, while Octavia watches her, amused. She’s not used to seeing her quite so restless and out of control.

 

“You never answered me, by the way.”

 

“About what, exactly? You talk a lot.”

 

“About Clarke. How are things?”

 

Lexa rips into a protein back and settles back, stretching out her long, tired legs. “Yes I did. I said we didn’t have ‘things.’”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

“No I don’t,” Lexa grumbles, mouth full of chocolate and whey protein.

 

“I mean like, you know, how is the whole ‘get Clarke a guy’ mission going?”

 

“Or girl.”

 

“What?”

 

“’Get Clarke a guy _or girl_ is going…fine. I don’t know.”

 

“You don’t know?”

 

“It’s been two weeks, Octavia. We’re working on it.”

 

Octavia snorts. “Is she really that bad?”

 

“No we’re just still in phase one.”

 

“And what’s that?”

 

Lexa searches for her discarded water bottle which she finds in Octavia’s hand. “Give me that.” She takes a sip.   “We make him wait.”

 

“Or her.”

 

“Nope, just him. This time. Wick.”

 

“Wick?”

 

“That’s his name.”

 

“What the hell kind of name is that?”

 

“Don’t know, don’t care.”

 

“You feel that way about a lot of things don’t you, Lexa Sexa?”

 

“Don’t call me that.”

 

“It’s true though.”

 

Lexa tosses her water bottle at her. “Get in the ring,” she growls, and all Octavia can do is chuckle.  

 

//

 

Waiting for Clarke to show up twenty minutes late is a mild annoyance compared to the text she is currently trying to figure out how to reply to while she waited.

 

It’d been a blow to her ego a bit, to have a girl question her rules, to be second guessed despite the fact that Lexa prides herself in her ability to articulate clearly. Her morning had turned into a series of angry, little ticks—slamming her phone down, drinking too quickly, thus giving her hiccups, then cursing at them passionately.

 

She’s in the middle of this routine, somewhere between gulping down her coffee and defending against hiccups, when a golden, rambling blur stumbles through the door and over to her table.

 

“Hey, so sorry I’m late.”

 

Lexa looks up slowly, still perplexed by her phone, and grunts.

 

“Car broke down, then my bike got a flat. Had to lock it to a stop sign and walk here. It’s hot. Did you notice how fucking hot it is? I’m covered in sweat.”

 

Lexa is typing and deleting like a teenager on a mission while Clarke slides into the booth, still rambling. 

 

“Keep that last part out,” is all Lexa says, still glaring at her phone.  

 

Clarke sighs long and hard, a hurricane slowly winding down to a stop. “What?”

 

“Step two. Listen more. Get him talking, ask about his life. Make him think you care. Don’t talk about yourself too much and definitely don’t talk about bodily functions when you see him. As in, no sweating—”

 

“ _Really?”_

 

“Yeah, really.”

 

“No, I meant.” Clarke grits her teeth. “Never mind.”

 

Lexa looks up and stares, waiting. Bubbles of perspiration litter Clarke’s hairline and melt into her pink cheeks and red lips. She cocks her head. “What were you going to say?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“That’s not true.”

 

“Well if you’re going to just jump right into it, get on with it,” Clarke snaps. “What’s the rest of step 2?”

 

“Did I do something to offend you?”

 

“Why do you say that?” Clarke oozes sarcasm as she leans back into the booth and crosses her arms.

 

“For one thing, you’re not looking at me.”

 

Clarke brings her eyes up. She raises an eyebrow.

 

“And you’re snapping at me.”

 

She leans back as Clark pushes in like physics—one pushing, the other pulling— “Are you really that emotionally stunted?”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“The first thing you said to me was about Wick and your freaking steps. I was talking to _you,_ Lexa. The least you can do is at act like you want to be here.”

 

Lexa is silent for a moment. Her eyes fall back to Clarke’s hairline, but this time they travel the curve of her pale ears and high jaw hinge. “I’m sorry,” she states once she finds her way back to Clarke’s eyes that look both curious and annoyed, somehow perfectly mirroring the way Lexa feels more often than not lately.

 

“You just seriously need to—wait. What?”

 

“I said, I’m sorry.”

 

Clarke fluffs a little bit. “Oh.” She adjusts, not used to being right. “Well. Okay.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“So…”

 

“You were saying it was hot.”

 

“I—what?”

 

“Would you like a drink?”

 

“Oh. Sure.”

 

Lexa waves down a waitress then looks at Clarke expectantly as Clarke scrambles to catch up, her mind still clinging to the soft way Lexa had apologized. She stares at the waitress, lost for a moment.

 

“Your drink?”

 

“Oh, right. Um, whatever she’s having.” She pauses. “Actually, no. I don’t trust her drink choices. I’ll have an iced green tea latte.”

 

Lexa involuntarily scrunches her nose.

 

“What?”

 

“I just don’t know why anyone would ever ruin something like green tea by turning it into a latte.”

  
“What do you drink?”

 

“Americana. One shot.”

 

“Fitting.”

 

“Why?”

 

“You’re bitter and high strung.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

They both smile, sort of charmed with one another in that odd way in which dislike can sometimes be enjoyable.

 

“So you were saying it was hot. When you got here.”

 

“Back to that?”

 

“Well you said to at least act like I want to be here. Tell me about your day.”

 

Clarke narrows her eyes, the smallest of grins living in the corner of her mouth. “Tell me about yours.”

 

“Mine was fine. And you?”

 

Clarke has never met anyone more infuriating in her life. Someone so annoying. So keen on trying to not try. “You truly are the master of indifference, aren’t you?”

 

“I’m just concise.”

 

“You’re exhausting.”

 

“I call it efficient.”

 

“Impossible.”

 

She sighs. “How was your day, Clarke?”

 

//

 

Lexa learns that Clarke is a rambler almost as quickly as she learns that Clarke is funny. Like surprisingly funny in a way that makes her lips ache from the restraint she always forces herself to practice.  

 

She decides that she likes the sound of Clarke’s voice too. At least enough to stay focused for longer than she tends to with others. And that Clarke trips and stumbles out of her rants as if she becomes suddenly aware that she’s lost herself in speech for longer than she intended.

 

“I rambled again.”

 

Lexa smiles, content to watch and listen and process. “You did.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t be.”

 

“I’d like to hear more about you.”

 

“Oh, I’m boring.”

 

Clarke rolls her eyes. “I have a feeling that’s not true.”

 

“You’d be surprised.”

 

Clarke works on her second latte as Lexa switches to water once the caffeine starts to make her vibrate.

 

“Well what have you done since I saw you last? It’s been two weeks.”

 

“Just work.”

 

“What do you do?”

 

“I run a business.”

 

Clarke has to wonder if Lexa is always this reserved or if maybe it’s just her. She tries again. “Running a business… fancy.”

 

“Not really.”

 

“What’s your business?”

 

“Has Octavia told you nothing about me?”

 

Clarke puckers in thought. “She once said you’re rich, hot and a total tool. I think.”

 

Lexa considers.

 

“I’m sorry. That was mean.”

 

“As opposed to what you normally say to me?”

 

Clarke goes sheepish and Lexa wavers in discomfort, not having intended for Clarke to actually feel chastised. Before she can redact, Clarke folds into herself and murmurs, “You just kind of seem like a wall. Like nothing bothers you.”

 

“Nothing does,” Lexa assures, wanting away from this topic as quickly as possible.

 

“Still. It’s not fair.”

 

“It’s.”  She chuckles, “It’s fine, Clarke. Really.”

 

Clarke looks away, avoiding such acceptance, such honesty from a girl so strong she had to have been broken at some point. A part of her wishes he knew what that crack might have looked like.

 

“Would you like another?”

 

Clarke lifts, just enough to see Lexa pointing to her empty cup. “No thanks, I’m okay.”

 

Lexa nods and Clarke watches as her jaw bulges and releases with restrained words she longs to hear so much it aches in the base of her throat. But she clears it away without another second to spare. “So what’s your business?”

 

Lexa deflates, relieved and once again unburdened. “It’s a private, mechanical engineering firm.”

 

“Oh wow. Okay. So you’re smart, then.”

 

“Just driven.”

 

Clarke doesn’t doubt it for a second, though she knows too that her first inkling was more than likely correct as well. “What does your firm do?”

 

“We develop products and sell them to distributers they best match with.”

 

Clarke laughs. “That’s all very vague. Is this your way of telling me you’re a spy?”

 

Lexa likes the sound of Clarke’s laugh. It reminds her of something, though she’s not sure what. “No. Though, I _do_ work with the government sometimes. When they ask nicely.”

 

“Mm, cocky, aren’t we?”

 

“Just confident.”

 

“That’s a good trait to have as a business owner. Do you run it too?”

 

She’s skating now a little now. Gliding and carving around the conversation, trying to stay upright by avoiding the slippery parts. “Yes. I had my uncle helping me for some time as CEO. When he passed, I took over full time and hired a COO.”

 

Among all the alphabet soup that Clarke tries to keep up with, she hears the way Lexa’s voice bottoms out, slightly. Like it doesn’t quite want to voice the reality of a situation that is undoubtedly upsetting and it pings dully, all to familiar, in her chest.

 

“I’m sorry. About your uncle. And I’m impressed with what you do. Though I still don’t quite understand what it is.”

 

“Makes me more mysterious, though, right?”

 

“If you are anything, it is definitely mysterious.”

 

“I thought I was bitter. And high strung. Maybe a tool, too.” Lexa cracks a grin.

 

“You’re not so terrible.”

 

“No?”

 

Clarke shakes her head in a sort of wild, yet calm amusement. “Nah. I’ve seen worse.”

 

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

 

Clarke rolls her eyes. “I thought you said self-deprecation wasn’t attractive.”

 

“When you’re trying to get a date, it isn’t. But since that’s not this, I think I’m in the clear.”

 

Clarke works through the comment with her teeth waging war against her cheek. She wonders.  In this girl’s presence, she wonders endlessly. “Speaking of.”

 

“Wick.”

 

“Yes. Tomorrow’s Friday.”

 

“It is.”

 

“I think I’m set on step 2,” Clarke teases. “No sweating.”

 

Lexa grins. “Right.”

 

“And then?”

 

“And then we go from there.”

 

Clarke is relentless, always smiling, always watching. Lexa shrinks and grows under the scrutiny.

 

“Have you always been an engineer?”

 

“Clarke.”

 

“We’re friends, right?”

 

Something stirs—maybe in the air or maybe inside her her. It’s close and it makes her struggle to swallow. “I think so,” she mutters. And then, to make herself feel a little better, “We’re getting there.”

 

Clarke goes undeterred. “Good. So then tell me more. What kind of things does your company make?”

 

“Why are you so interested?”

 

Clarke shrugs. “My father was an engineer. I like engineers.”

 

Lexa sighs.

  
“C’mon, Lex. Tell me more.” Clarke gives her a big puppy dog pout.

 

“I have to answer this text.”

  
Clarke grabs the phone and reads it, leading to a furrowed brow and a snort. She shoots something off before Lexa even realizes what she’s doing then passes it back to her. “There. All done. Now get talking.”

 

Lexa stares at her phone, pleasantly surprised at the concise and fitting answer Clarke had given and breathes a little deeper.


	3. On the first date, teach them something you care about. Something real. Invite them into your world. If they listen, see them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For an added experience, read and listen:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7beUagj_w

Clarke’s voice is thin on the phone and somehow it makes Lexa’s fingers itch to do something about it. She presses her phone tight to her ear as she lay in her bed with her back turned to the nameless sleeping thing next to her.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“I don't know," Clarke sighs. "Wait. Why are you whispering? Oh... oh god, are you with someone? I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have—“

 

“No, no,” Lexa says a little too loud and glances behind her to check for any stirring. “It’s fine. We can talk. Are you…are you okay?”

 

There’s a long pause. Long enough for Lexa to pull her phone away and make sure Clarke’s name is still on the phone with the timer counting the seconds like the beating of her heart, slow and steady and silent. She puts it back in time to hear a burdened sigh.

 

“I just—I don’t know. Am I broken?”

 

Lexa sits up and swings her legs over the edge of her large, grey bed. She rolls her shoulders and twists her spine a few times before she slips out into the dark expanse of her bedroom in search of some clothes. She dawns them, then ventures out onto her balcony, where the stars seem to peer down at her critically. She glares back up at them and tries to swallow the sleep from her dry throat.

 

“You’re not broken.”

 

“I’m not so sure.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“I listened. I listened and listened and then he asked me out. He took me to a park and it was wonderful. He brought flowers. Wine.”

 

“And step 3?"

 

"I tried."

 

"What did you teach him? How'd you invite him into your world?”

 

“I talked about Picasso. About art. You know, just. I don’t know.” The girl on her phone sighs and Lexa wants to gather it up and put it back, not liking at all the way it stings on her ear. “I thought he was into it. He seemed into it. All the way up to his door.”

 

Another long pause. Lexa closes her eyes and settles into her lounge chair.  “You slept with him.”

 

“He called me beautiful.”

 

She can’t find it in herself to chastise her, so she just shakes her head, unsure of what to feel. “You are.”

 

“What?”

 

“You are beautiful.”

 

“He didn’t make me feel it.”

 

“No,” Lexa muses, “I suspect not.” Her free hand is in a fist and she’s not sure why, so she shoves it into her sweat pants pocket.

 

“Why did I do that?”

 

Lexa stares out across the city, eyes bouncing from lone office to lone office lit against the deep blue of the late night-morning. She wonders if the men and women inside feel the way she often did when rooted at her desk after everyone else has left.

 

“Because you’re lonely,” she sighs. 

 

The line goes silent for longer than ever. She doesn’t pull the phone away this time. Just waits. Hoping, and not sure why.

 

“I looked you up.”

 

The confession whips out into the air with the breeze that claws at Lexa’s exposed skin— her knuckles and ear tips, cheek bones and nose, are white and pink with every gust. It whips up into the air and into those stars which Lexa lends her eyes to again.

 

“You’re kind of a big deal. Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“I don’t do it for the attention.”

 

“Why do you do it?”

 

“Because I’m lonely too.”

 

She hears Clarke pause. And then, “Where are you?”

 

Lexa closes her eyes. “Where are _you_?”

 

“At the park.”

 

“Alone?”

 

There’s no answer and it pulls Lexa back into her room.

 

“Clarke?”

 

“Yes, I’m alone.”

 

She pulls on her shoes.

 

“What park?”

 

“The big one. You know. In the middle of the city.”

 

Despite the fear scratching its way up the inside of her ribcage, Lexa grins. “Where in Central Park?”

 

 //

 

She finds her in the middle of Sheep Meadow, spread eagle on the wet grass and completely still except for one arm stretched skyward, pointer finger dancing and analyzing imaginary lines.

 

She watches Clarke move and not move, that once rambling, golden blur now subtle and calm and completely new. She hugs her jacket around her tighter and watches.

 

When Clarke senses her, she turns just her head. There’s a small smile that blooms when the moonlight catches Lexa’s features and exposes the familiar face. Her arm drops unceremoniously. Lexa feels the drop in her chest, but is too busy meeting Clarke’s sad eyes to notice.

 

Lexa drags herself forward, a mime on a rope, moving beyond her control and struggling all the same. She drops down next to Clarke and feels an immense something wash over her at the sight of this sun looking so extinguished beside her.

  
“You came.”

 

Lexa sighs and hugs her knees. “Of course I came. You’re alone at 3 in the morning in the middle of Central Park,” Lexa snaps, suddenly annoyed.

 

Clarke just smiles and soothes the barbs with a quiet hand to Lexa’s shoe. “What’s her name?”

 

Lexa looks down at her and unconsciously traces the contour of the silver and orange light constructing Clarke’s face into all kinds of geometric shapes. She itches to measure and mold and explore. “Who?”

 

“The girl in your bed.”

 

“Oh, I don’t know. Sarah, maybe. Something like that.”

 

“Sarah.” Lexa watches Clarke taste it in her mouth and wonders if it feels as metallic for her as it does in her own. “Is she pretty?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Really pretty?”

 

“Clarke.”

 

Clarke hums in thought. “Funny?”

 

“I’m not sure.”

 

“Have you been with her before?”

 

Lexa does that muffled sort of growl that Clarke finds so amusing and endearing. She smiles and waits patiently until Lexa is done huffing and puffing. “Do you like her?”

 

“Why do you care, Clarke?”  

 

“I’m lonely, remember? I have to live vicariously.”

 

Lexa feels petulant around Clarke. The girl’s constant expectations for her to be open make her want to scream and kick and pout until she’s left alone in her more comfortable silence. She gives a mighty huff and runs her hands along her arms, smoothing the chillbumps there.

 

“It’s fine. You don’t have to,” Clarke murmurs.

 

And she’s got Lexa again. All tied up and guilty and wishing more than anything she knew how she got here.

 

“She’s fine, I guess.  She was willing to spend the night and only the night. So she did.”

 

“I’m surprised you let them even spend the night. Isn’t that like rule number one?”

 

Lexa grinds down hard and fidgets herself into a tight ball. “I didn’t come out here in the middle of the night in thirty-degree whether to be lectured about relationships by someone who can’t even get a second date.”

 

It’s meant to bite and it does. It’s bites through Clarke until she is finally silent. But, of course, it doesn’t make Lexa feel any better the way she’d hoped. She rolls her eyes at herself, or maybe at the girl who makes her want to apologize when normally she couldn’t care less. She can’t quite find any words, so she scoots forward and lays down next to the little extinguished sun instead. She can’t help it when she turns her head to look at her.

 

Clarke’s eyes bounce around the light polluted sky, searching for stars past the sirens and smog and the unbelievable noise that Lexa’s staring causes in her mind. “What was her name?”

 

Lexa has to blink several times before she’s able to process a word that comes out of Clarke’s thin, chapped lips now purple from the chill. “We’ve gone over this.”

 

“Not Sara.”

 

“Who then?”

 

“The girl who made you like this.”

 

A cop car wails down the street, but it’s muffled by the murmur of leaves in the wind, stretching off their branches in a valiant attempt to fly free. It otherwise seems so still here. Still and vast and like she’s being swallowed whole by the immensity of this girl who asks her too many questions and listens like she cares. Lexa turns back to the sky and tries to see whatever it is that’s making Clarke so brave.

 

“Costia.”

 

“Costia,” Clarke murmurs. “That pretty.”

 

Lexa nods.

 

 “What happened?”

 

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

 

“Did she leave you?”

 

Lexa wants to rebel and rebel and rebel against this girl who doesn't take no for an answer and pushes all of her buttons. But having experienced Clarke enough at this point to know that she’s not going to win, she relents. Or maybe she's just tired. Tired, so very tired, of keeping it all in. Especially when Clarke gets like this, hunting and gathering with an intensity that belongs to a different species, a different world.  “In a sense,” she murmurs, giving up.  And it feels like cobwebs in her mouth. Sticky and old and scary.

 

“Were you happy?”

 

Lexa nods.

 

“Why did she leave then?”

 

“Sometimes things just aren’t meant to be.”

 

“But if you were happy—“

 

“She died, Clarke. Okay?”  

 

Clarke flinches, but then she nods, all too familiar with the motivation behind Lexa’s lashes and barbs. She doesn’t repel though, just sits quietly and waits for Lexa to simmer back down. She always does.

 

Lexa is more grateful than she’s used to feeling when Clarke remains silent, allowing her to get used to the way her chest guiltily balloons a little with a bit of the weight chipped away and forced out of her.

 

They stare at the stars together, and Lexa wonders when this weird, quiet thing between them quite was born. She’d never expected to find a friend in Clarke, but her back was wet with dew and her spine ached with the cold of it, and she could pretend all she wanted, but the truth of the matter is that she wouldn’t be here if she didn’t care.

 

Lexa turns her head, tracing and constructing again because she can’t help it. Clarke is full of shapes and wonderful symmetry that Lexa’s engineering mind is so effortlessly drawn to. It doesn't mean anything. Lexa just appreciates the impeccable construction.

 

“My dad died a few months ago,” Clarke admits, quietly, suddenly. Lexa expects her to continue, but she doesn’t. Just presents it in a sort of morbid solidarity.

 

“The engineer,” Lexa offers.

 

Clarke hums and pushes herself up to sitting. Lexa thinks for follow her, but before she can, Clarke is back. She hands Lexa her phone with a picture pulled up. “My dad,” she says simply.

 

Lexa studies it and it makes her feel important and awful. Like an undeserving ward of something delicate and sacred, too much so for her calloused hands. She returns it. “You have his features,” she tries.

 

Clarke smiles and stares at the picture. “His eyes are my favorite. They were so blue.”

 

“Like yours.”

 

Clarke hums.

 

“What kind of engineer was he?”

 

“Aeronautical.”

 

Lexa whistles. “Tough field.”

 

“Much like yours, I bet.”

 

It’s comments like those that has Lexa wondering when exactly she’d gotten here. When exactly she’d let someone know enough to want to assure her of her own importance. Lexa had never needed assurance from external sources, and yet here was Clarke, ever steady, ever assuring. It made something in her swell though she forced it down with all her might. She didn't need it. She didn't need her. She stared her own company, built it, grew it, friendless and loveless and parentless. She didn't need this. 

 

“Just different,” she remembers to murmur.

 

Clarke smiles at Lexa’s constant show of humble deflection and tries to source the discrepancy between the girl’s cocksureness about women and sex, and the almost gentle denial of praise with everything else. She goes to say something, but sees the discomfort in Lexa’s eyes. For a face so passive, so unyielding, her eyes betray everything. Clarke pretends not to notice for the sake of the stoic set of Lexa’s jaw, and turns back to her phone. She eyes the man she can’t quite remember on her own.

 

“He was brilliant, Lex,” she sighs. “Just so…so full of ideas and ways to make things better. He was—“

 

Lexa hears it catch in her throat. She brushes their knuckles without really meaning to, but it settles them both. And then Clarke is unstoppable in her rollercoaster of tones—quiet chuckles followed by rousing recollections that then dip into soft regrets and stirring stories.

 

Lexa watches her come alive against the grass, ebbing and flowing. She smiles slightly at times; the times when Clarke turns to her mid conversation, chest pumping out words as her eyes widen to convey them all. She frowns at others, when Clarke goes quiet and her hands fidget in knots against her stomach. In times like these, when Clarke just about disappears up into the stars where she seems much more comfortable, Lexa feels an inexplicable tug to bring her back down.  This is when Lexa shifts and responds, and Clarke immediately drifts back, tethered by the treat of Lexa’s words when they are normally so scarce.

 

Lexa finds herself intoxicated by this power. She finds herself asking more questions, just to hear the rambling or the silence. She finds herself ignoring the calls and texts from maybe-Sarah. She finds her eyes fluttering as Clarke’s voice continues to dip and peak in passionate patters that comfort Lexa because they make her feel small. Small, but needed. She finds herself startling awake when cold fingers gently prod at her wrist an hour or so later.

 

“We should go,” Clarke whispers.

 

Lexa shifts onto her side and hisses internally at the way the cold air immediately attacks her exposed, wet back. Clarke turns to meet her, head pillowed on her hands, shivers much more prominent than Lexa’s own. She doesn’t really know what she’s doing until she finds her jacket wrapped around Clarke’s shoulders and Clarke’s head dipping to meet her forehead.

 

“I don’t know what to do,” Clarke whispers and the tiny cloud of condensation tickles Lexa's face. 

 

Lexa stays only because Clarke is warm, and the proximity offers just enough to take the edge off. “Nobody does," she whispers back. "If they do, they’re just pretending.”

 

“How do I pretend?”

 

“You follow the steps.”

 

Clarke let’s her eyes really roam over Lexa for the first time. She catches the softness of her long-sleeve shirt, clearly thrown on in a hurry. Sees the sleep still gathered in the corner of her green eyes, and the way the draw string of her pajama pants don’t quite form a knot. It makes her wonder if maybe Lexa really does have the right idea. No attachments, no expectations. Just the ability to leave a nameless someone in your bed in the middle of the night, and not worry about it.

 

“I think I’ll have to start over,” she decides.

 

Lexa nods. “Step one.”

 

"Until I get it right." 

 

"Yeah," Lexa echoes, mind clouding, body shivering, eyes roaming. "Until you get it right." 


	4. Connect with their friends. It’s hard to lose you if their friends think you’re cool.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glad you guys are liking this! I appreciate your love and comments so much. As seen on tumblr, I have the next step already planned out, but if you'd like to make suggestions for Steps 6-8 (I have 9-10 planned), I'll see if I can work them in with what I've sort of got going in my mind!

Clarke’s start-over is named Finn. He is dopey and charming and has eyes for Clarke that Lexa wants to trust, but somehow can’t. There’s something about him that she doesn’t like, something dark and closed off that she senses only because it’s familiar. Though she doesn’t say this to Clarke.  Instead she just listens and nods as Clarke talks about her dates with him with wild hands and excited smiles.  

 

They meet for lunch on Lexa’s breaks more often than not under the guise of talking through the steps, but they both knew it’d long since stopped being that. Lexa appreciates her company, and enjoys the way Clarke seems to appreciate hers, unfamiliar with the feeling.

 

Anya, her COO, hates it wildly. She’ll pop by Lexa’s large office on the top floor and find her CEO and her CEO’s annoyance of a friend sitting cross legged on the floor almost every day of the week eating cheap Chinese take-out that burns her nose. Sometimes she finds them lounging on the sleek black chaise that Lexa sleeps on more often than she sleeps in her own bed, to find Lexa totally and completely enthralled by the girl who speaks with her hands.

 

That is of course until Anya had taken to knocking, causing the CEO to jump and glare so hard it’s just about the only comfort Anya gets from these moments because at least she knows the CEO still has it in her to be as terrifying as ever.

 

Lexa knows Anya can’t stand the perceived distraction, but there’s almost a satisfaction to that. A way to assert her dominance when for the past month she’d felt weakness seeping into her crevices and making her soft. She almost enjoys the way her defiance causes the repressed comments to flash in her COO’s eyes like the flashing silver of a dagger at the ready.

 

It isn’t until one day, when Anya sticks her head and purposefully sucks up three minutes of her time during her lunch just to talk about numbers Lexa has already gone over twice before her break, and Clarke insists that the COO join them, that Lexa realizes it can be anything other than a way to provoke.

 

She doesn’t expect her COO to join, but Anya stares at the girl with the hands for a long moment before she nods once, curt, and walks stiffly into the office and folds down to the floor.

 

“We’ve got lou mein and stirfry. Oh and some fried rice and an egg roll left, I think,” Clarke offers, pushing the cartons towards the tight-lipped COO in the pencil-skirt suit that is almost just as tight.

 

Lexa holds her breath as she watches Anya sniff around a new situation like a wild animal, and hopes the COO doesn’t decide she wants to attack. But Anya just sits quietly, eyes trying to keep up with the way Clarke tells stories with every part of her body, nodding occasionally or rolling her eyes.    

 

“What do you think, Lex?”

 

Lexa draws her attention away from Anya and back to Clarke, both reluctantly and not, intrigued by the both of them. “Think about what?”

 

“Finn invited me to a like pre-Thanksgiving party at his house a couple Friday’s from now. I was telling Anya it’d be a good time for step 4, right?”

 

“Anya thinks the steps are useless,” she stays, a small smirk playing on her face.  

 

“I don’t think the steps are useless. I think the premise is,” Anya touts.

 

“What would you say the premise is?” Clarke watches Anya shift and harden slightly, ever so subtle like it’s just under her skin, and she’s so reminded of Lexa in that moment it makes her want to laugh.

 

“The premise that two people can jam their lives together with a few good feelings and expect it to work.”

 

“Ah,” Clarke says, chewing and nodding, “so you’re the same then?”

 

Anya dares her to continue with the flick of an eyebrow.

 

Clarke nods towards the CEO. “As Lexa," she clarifies. "You think attachment is messy.”

 

“Of course it is. People are too complicated to make anything last.”

 

Clarke shakes her head as she works through the large bite in her mouth, almost choking in her enthusiasm to swallow and get her opinion out. “I think that’s _why_ it works,” she mumbles through the broccoli. Anya rolls her eyes and Lexa snorts, otherwise choosing to take a quiet back seat and eat her noodles. “Two people sharing their complicated and complex lives with each other to create something totally new and unique is what’s so beautiful.”

 

“You can be new and unique on your own. You don’t need someone else mucking it up to make it interesting.”

 

“But it doesn’t have to be mucking it up,” Clarke argues, “it can be adding to it. It’s like creating art. You know?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well, it’s like you’ve got these primary, singular colors, right? Like red, blue, yellow, etc. They’re familiar and you spend your whole life working with them, but then when you’re ready, you can introduce new colors into your work by mixing them with the ones you’ve known your whole life. You get purple, and teal, and magenta and all of these beautiful colors you never had before.”

 

“But then you lose the original colors,” Anya snaps.

 

Lexa continues to sit quietly, bouncing back and forth between the tennis match of words. She can’t help but wonder the last time she’d seen anyone keep up with Anya’s stead-fast opinions and fiery tongue. It makes her grin, watching Anya’s eyes widen and squint with outrage and also, though the COO would never admit it, curiosity.

 

“No! No you don’t! That’s the beauty of it,” Clarke exclaims. “The colors are still there, they’ve just been changed a little because they’ve become a part of something to create a whole new thing. But fundamentally you still have the blue in teal, it’s just now you have some green in there too. And the green still maintains it’s own colorhood, but—“

 

“Colorhood?”

 

“You know, like ‘personhood.’”

 

“That’s ridiculous,” Anya scoffs.

 

“I never said the analogy was perfect.”

 

“I’m not just talking about the analogy. I’m talking about all of it. Once you mix two colors, and create a new one, you don’t see the old ones anymore. Sure, maybe they’re still there if you look really hard, but they’re not the same.”

 

“What’s so bad about that? It’s good to change.”

 

“Not for other people. You shouldn’t change who you are for other people.”

 

“If the circumstances and motivations are right, then you totally can!”

 

“That’s ludacris! Why would you ever want to let someone have that level of control over you?!”

 

Clarke groans in frustration.  “It’s not _control,_ Anya. It’s…it’s co-mingling. Or, or, or sharing something amazing like your life with someone else and seeing _they’re_ life,” Clarke explains in frantic passion, desperate to have Anya see.

 

“And what happens when one color decides to leave?”

 

“What?” Clarke frowns and shakes her head. The mood totally shifts, it can be felt in the air, but Clarke is too worked up to notice.

 

“What happens when Blue decides they don’t want to be Teal anymore so Blue leaves.  What happens to Green? You can’t unmix colors.”

 

“Well like I said, the analogy isn’t perfect. Of course with people, someone can leave and the other is fine.”

 

“ _No,_ ” Anya seethes, “they’re _not_ fine. Your analogy is sound, Clarke. It speaks perfectly to the fact that once you let another color blend with yours, you can’t unblend without the fundamental composition, and thus the original color, being royally fucked up.”  

 

Chest heaving and tongue like a rubber band pulled taught, full of kinetic energy and ready to snap, Clarke shakes her head and opens her mouth to speak. She shoots a thoughtless and habitual glance over at Lexa. What’s meant to be a passing look stops her hard when her heart slams into her chest and she realizes where she’d messed up.

 

Lexa’s head is bowed, her shoulders slumped and her jaw clenched so hard it must hurt, and the display is so visceral in its pain that it makes Clarke nauseous with the regret and guilt. Lexa doesn’t raise her eyes when the room goes silence, but she slowly unfolds her long legs, wipes her mouth on a napkin and excuses herself in nothing more than a whisper.

 

Clarke goes to say something, anything, but her mouth is dry and her throat is tight and all she can do is watch, fingers twitching with the urge to reach out, as Lexa disappears out of her office.

 

“Fuck,” she hisses once the door has closed. “Fuck, I’m such an idiot.”

 

Anya looks long and hard at her, almost as if she is deliberating, before she leans back on one hand and massages the bridge of her nose with the other. “That wasn’t your fault,” she sighs. “I shouldn’t have—“  


“No, I got carried away,” Clarke insists. “I…I should go.”

 

Anya nods, but not out of malice. In fact, there’s almost a respect in the way Anya looks at her as Clarke shuffles together the empty cartons of food. “I can get those,” she offers.

 

Clarke thanks her quietly and gathers her things from various part of Lexa’s office—her jacket from the hook on the wall, purse from Lexa’s desk, portfolio of her paintings she’d been showing the CEO from the back wall.

 

Anya watches because she can’t help but puzzle over the way Clarke seems so at home in this room when so many others can’t stand how cold and intimidating it seems. She nods to Clarke when the girl bids her goodbye one last time, and busies herself with cleaning up the food.

 

She expects her to be gone when she walks out of the office a few minutes later, but when she passes their floor’s reception area on the way to the trashcan, she startles to a standstill at what she finds. Her eyes bounce between Clarke and her CEO, whose tall frame is bowed towards the other girl the way a tree leans towards the sun. She can’t possibly hope to hear what they’re saying, but Clarke’s lips move slowly, clearly soothing, and Lexa nods every once in a while.

 

A discomfort creeps under her skin when Clarke’s hands slide up Lexa’s arms before they move to needlessly adjust the CEO’s collar and tighten her tie, then her handkerchief. It’s not that she dislikes it for Lexa, it’s just that it’s unfamiliar. But Lexa has a hint of a smile and is pliant in the hands of the girl who waves them about when she talks, so Anya can’t quite make herself leave.

 

 

                                                                                                     

“What did I tell you about this color?” Clarke asks quietly, trying to be funny, as she tightens Lexa’s black paisley tie.

 

“I like this color,” Lexa murmurs with a hint of a smile making its way onto her face.

 

“It’s boring,” Clarke tuts, moving to adjust the matching handkerchief in her chest pocket.

 

“I like it.”

 

“Bold is better on you.”

 

“I like it,” Lexa repeats.

 

 Clarke gives her a once over as her hands drop to Lexa’s hips and sighs, “Yeah, me too.”

 

 

 

It feels private and intimate, something Anya definitely shouldn’t be seeing, but it’s a relief from the previous moment. From when Anya had let her own selfish opinions send her blindly into an argument much too close to home for her CEO. She feels herself somewhat absolved watching the moment even though it is Clarke providing the comfort. It’s when Clarke’s hands drop to Lexa’s hips and rest there lazily that finally gets Anya to turn away. 

 

//

 

It’s already too loud. As soon as she and Anya walk up to the door she can tell she’s not going to like it. She turns to Anya who is already looking at her skeptically, but before they can voice their simultaneous decision to bail, the door flies open.

 

“Lex!”

 

Clarke throws herself on the CEO and wraps her in a tight hug that Lexa can’t help but chuckle through. Anya gets a slightly less enthusiastic hug, but a hug all the same, despite the fact that the COO remains stiff and awkward through the entire thing. Though not for a lack of trying. She offers Clarke her best attempt at a smile when the girl stands back and looks at them.  

 

“You look snazzy,” Clarke says to Lexa, still beaming, as she sizes up the CEO’s wonderfully fitted three-piece silver suit.

 

“I came from work. No time to change.” She hands over the pie she’d brought which Clarke takes with an excited smile.

 

“No, I like it.” Clarke can’t help herself when she reaches up and adjusts Lexa’s tie so that it’s in the center of her vest. “It’s nice,” she says, smoothing her hand down the front of the ensemble. “This is a good tie. Who taught you how to pick colors?” She asks, grinning as she pats the mauve tie it in one final gesture of approval.

 

Lexa rolls her eyes.  “It’s not hard to go bold with grey.”

 

“Well, I suppose not. It’s a nice choice though.”

 

Lexa grins, but clears her throat and takes a step back when a figure looms in behind Clarke and sticks his head out the door.

 

“You must be Lexa.”

 

Clarke jumps then throws her hand on her chest and laughs. “God, Finn, you scared me.”

 

“Sorry, baby.” He gives Clarke a quick kiss to the head then extends his hand. “Finn Collins.”

 

Lexa gives him a firm shake and tries not to laugh about the fact that she’s seen him at least four times when hanging out in the wings during his and Clarke’s initial dates, coming out of the shadows here and there only to offer her friend advice on how to proceed before disappearing again. “Lexa Woods,” she offers in her business tone. “This is my friend—“

 

“Anya,” he finishes for her, “am I right?”

 

Anya shakes his hand and tries her best not to look as annoyed as she feels by all of the smiles and merriment. “Pleasure,” she manages to chew out, though Finn already has his attention back on Lexa.

 

“That’s quite a suit. I’m flattered you dressed up for my little shindig.”

 

Lexa does her best to choke down her snort and Anya’s face nearly twitches from the strain of holding back an eye roll.

 

“Oh, Lex just came from work,” Clarke fills, still smiling and full of bubbly energy.

 

“Ah, yes. The engineer.”

 

“CEO,” Anya corrects dutifully.

 

Finn’s eyes widen as he nods, impressed, but otherwise they fall into silence.  

 

And it’s awkward. It’s so awkward it hurts, but Lexa stands there graciously because Clarke is looking at her with those wide eyes and bright smile, clearly grateful to see her, and Finn seems nice enough despite his inability to host.

 

“So…” Clarke tries, “do you want to come in?”

 

“Oh gosh, yes! Come in, come in. My apologies,” Finn blurts. The couple steps back and allows space for the guests to enter, and Lexa nearly has to grab Anya by the wrist to get her to follow.

 

//

 

“Clarke,” Lexa whispers, her head bowing forward to meet Clarke’s so that they’re just an inch or two away, huddled in the corner of the kitchen, “you’re supposed to be cozying up to him and his friends. Not me. Step 4.”

 

“I don’t like his friends,” Clarke huffs, her words slightly slurred form the alcohol.

 

“That’s not the point. You just need to make them like you.”

 

“Every..body…likes me.”

 

Lexa smiles and shakes her head, pulling away just to gently pry Clarke’s drink out of her hand. When she complains, Lexa just tuts and sets it on the counter. “That’s enough for you.”

 

“But it tastes good,” Clarke pouts.

 

“Yeah, rum and pumpkin pie-flavored liquor generally tends to. How are you getting home tonight?”

 

Clarke shrugs and reaches around Lexa for her drink, but Lexa is faster and more nimble, even without Clarke being inebriated, and catches her hand. “No more.”

 

“ _Lex._ ”

 

“No, Clarke.”

 

“Party pooper.”

 

“What are you guys doing?” Anya voice’s wafts between them as she strides into the kitchen and crosses her arms at the couple huddled in the corner, one eye brow raised.

 

“Shh,” Clarke hisses, “come join us.”

 

“What are you—“

 

“We’re hiding.”

 

“I’m not—I’m just here,” Lexa swears, raising her hands and chuckling when Clarke’s head falls to her chest in drunken sleepiness.

 

Anya shakes her head but saddles up them anyways and grabs Clarke’s drink on the way. “This yours?”

 

Clarke nods against Lexa’s tie and sighs. “She won’t let me drink it.”

 

“Yeah, well you’re shitfaced, so I can see why.”

 

“I’m not that drunk.”

 

“Coulda fooled me,” Anya quips, swallowing the drink down in two big gulps.

 

“I’m just tired. And uncomfortable, like…I’m supposed to be mingling, but I don’t know anyone.”

 

“That’s the point of mingling, Clarke,” Lexa chuckles, rubbing a hand up Clarke’s back.

 

“Have you met Finn’s ex?” Anya asks, coming to rest her back on the counter top.

 

Clarke nods and slowly drags herself away from Lexa, sinking the other way to rest on the counter opposite in the small kitchen. “Raven, yeah. I like her the most.”

 

“But still not great?” Anya questions, slight disagreement in her eyes that Lexa clocks and files away to talk about later.

 

“No, I mean, she’s fine. I just,” Clarke shrugs. “I don’t know.”

 

The trio stands there, comfortable in their silence having shared it several times before on the floor of Lexa’s office.

 

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Clarke mentions, glancing at Anya’s empty glass and more relaxed stature.

 

“I’m just pleasantly buzzed. Enough to take the edge off this pile of awkward.”

 

“Making any friends?”

 

Anya shrugs. “Don’t have much in common with these kids.”

 

Clarke laughs and rolls her eyes. “You’re not that much older.”

 

“I’m 30, Clarke. I think the next oldest person here is you and you're four years younger than me.”

 

“Finn is 27.”

 

“Finn might as well be 14.”

 

Lexa chuckles at the two friends’ antics and pulls away. “I’m gonna grab a drink. Want anything?”

 

Clarke grabs her wrist and holds her back. “Don’t go,” she whines, “I don’t know anyone.”

 

“You know Finn,” Lexa huffs and pulls at her arm.

 

“Finn’s busy.” Clarke’s grip remains there, though it’s loose and lazy and warm.

 

“I’m just getting a drink, Clarke, you’re fine. Talk to Anya.” She twists out of the hold and disappears, not totally hating the way Clarke’ fingers could still be felt tingling around her wrist as she walked into the busy living room.

 

 

 

“Lexa.”

 

Lexa bristles at the voice, but she tells herself she has no reason to and takes a calming breath. She turns and offers Finn the best smile she can manage. It’s little more than a quirking of the corner of her mouth. “Finn. Great party.”

 

“Thanks, I’m glad you came. I've heard a lot about you. I was glad I’d finally get to meet you when I heard she invited you and your friend.”

 

Lexa ignores the way something in her stutters at the information of Clarke talking about her and focuses on the shaggy-haired man in front of her. “Well, thanks for having us.”

 

“Of course, of course. By the way, have you seen my girlfriend? Lost her about half an hour ago.”

 

Lexa’s teeth grind together so hard it makes the muscle in her jaw bulge noticeably, and her nostrils flair with the sharp intake of air she does through her nose. _Clarke,_ she wants to say to him. She has a name. She’s not a belonging. She’s not _yours._  

 

“She’s in the kitchen,” is all she ends up saying.

 

//

 

By the end of the night, Lexa can practically feel Clarke simmering in her lap. She’d encouraged her at least three times to go sit with Finn, but she’d chosen to remain firmly planted atop Lexa's firm right leg, the perfect angle from which to glare at the way Finn is sitting a little too close and smiling a little too much at the girl sitting next to him on the opposite couch.

 

When the pair laugh and Finn goes to wipe something off Raven’s chin, Lexa can feel Clarke start to vibrate with anger and she knows it’s time to do something. “Hey, let’s go talk,” she murmurs in Clarke’s ear, patting her hip to usher her up.

 

Clarke follows her wordlessly to the bathroom and pouts like a child once the door is closed.

 

“Hey,” Lexa coos, “you’re fine.”

 

“He’s still into her.”

 

“He’s not. He’s just a little…”

 

“Dick.”

 

“Clarke,” Lexa sighs, wetting a paper towel with warm water. "He's just a little clueless." She takes it to the corner of Clarke’s pouting mouth. “You’ve got chocolate on your face.”

 

Clarke grins. “It’s your pecan pie.”

 

“Like that, huh?”

 

Clarke nods and watches Lexa’s eyes as they concentrate on her face.

 

“I’ll make you more.”

 

“You _made_ that? I thought it was store bought, it’s so good.”

 

Lexa shrugs. "I like to bake.”

 

 “Gorgeous, rich, smart  _and_ a good chef?" Clarke clucks her tongue. "You’re quite the heartbreaker, Ms. Woods.”

 

“Hush.”

 

Clarke smiles and slumps against the counter. Her eyes flit over Lexa's face, over the slope of her nose and around the sharp edge of her jaw. She sighs, something heavy thudding in her chest and itching at the corner of her eyes. “I think I’m clean,” she eventually mutters.

 

“What?” Lexa blinks and pulls back, staring up at Clarke with those bright, emerald eyes. 

 

Clarke grins. “I think I’m clean.”

 

“Oh.” Lexa chuckles as she pulls the damp towel away. “Sorry.”

 

“It’s fine. Felt nice.”

 

“Okay. Ready?”

 

Clarke shakes her head and reaches past to close the door Lexa’d just opened. “Just a little longer.”

 

“Clarke—”

 

“I know, I know. I should be mingling. I have plenty of time to see his friends again. If he even wants me to, that is,” she adds, bitterly.

 

“He’s doing it on purpose.”

 

“Doing what?”

 

Lexa moves to the toilet and sits, unsurprised when Clarke follows and plops down on her lap again.  “He’s trying to make you jealous. It’s a good sign.”

 

“Well it sucks,” Clarke grumbles.

 

Lexa wraps her arms around Clarke’s waist and leans forward, pressing her nose into Clarke’s citrus-scented hair. “I know,” she murmurs.

 

Clarke slips her hands under Lexa’s and aligns the pads of their fingers, mindlessly tapping and maneuvering them in gentle waves.

 

“Step 5 will help,” Lexa sighs. 

 

Clarke leans back and rests her head against Lexa’s cheek, closing her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about the steps right now.”


	5. Go on a trip together. If you can survive that, you can survive anything.

“This is so stupid,” Finn snaps under his breath.

 

Clarke does her best to ignore him, sitting as far away from him as their small tent would allow. She scrolls through her phone and smiles at the pictures of her friends on their own hiking trip, wondering where she’d gone wrong to make Finn so bitter about their camping excursion. It’d taken almost a month to get him here, with him constantly claiming work was too busy, and he hadn’t stopped huffing since the start.  

 

She grips her phone more tightly as the rain—Finn’s source of annoyance—comes down harder. She’s not expecting the next picture that shows up on her Facebook feed, but it makes something flip inside of her nicely. With fondness and a little bit of longing, she stares at the picture of Lexa’s tall frame bent over a desk, head in her hands, clearly disgruntled by something. The caption simply reads: “When you fly all the way across the country for a meeting and the other chick bails.” It’s from Anya’s profile.

 

She chuckles, but the caption worries her. Lexa had been so stressed about this merger, barely able to keep still during the movie night they’d had before she took off on a plane for San Francisco. The thought that Nia Azgeda of Azgeda Corp. hadn’t shown, after putting Lexa through so much back and forth, makes her blood boil.

 

“I’ll be right back,” she says, suddenly rising.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“I have to make a phone call.”

 

“It’s raining,” Finn spits out like it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard.

 

“Yeah. I happen to like the rain. Hiking in the rain is easily one of my most favorite things to do. You’d know that if your go-to this morning hadn’t been to pout and punish me for something I have no control over,” she seethes, finding a confidence she wasn’t expecting. “This could have been fun, Finn.”

 

“I didn’t ask for a camping trip in the middle of rain, Clarke.”

 

“And I didn’t ask for a shitty boyfriend who does nothing but complain when his girlfriend tries to do nice things for them!” She storms out without waiting for a reply and is calling Lexa before she’s even made it to the trail.

 

She hikes upwards towards the cliff she’d hoped to watch the sunrise from while the phone rings. She should hang up after the forth, but somehow even the ringing is comforting. It’s at least better than sitting in the silent tent with an angry boyfriend and an even angrier self.  

 

It takes a couple of tries, but as her quads are burning and she’s slightly out of breath, she finally gets Lexa’s soft, sleepy voice. Tt instantly makes her feel better. That is until she feels bad when she hears Lexa yawn. “You were asleep, weren’t you? I’m sorry, I can let you go--”

 

“No, no it’s okay,” Lexa mumbles through another yawn, “I was just taking a quick nap. Are you okay? What’s up?”

 

Clarke plops down on a rock and lets the rain come down on her, shivering slightly, but thoroughly enjoying the way it makes the world around her come alive. “I just…I needed to hear your voice.”

 

“Oh.” Clarke smiles at the surprised, but pleased tone. “Well, hi.”  

 

“Hi,’ she chuckles.

 

“Everything okay? You’re on your camping trip with Finn, aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

“Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

 

“He’s just—“ she sighs. She’s not sure what to say. He’s infuriatingly perplexing—sweet and tender one moment, angry and vicious the next. It’s like whiplash. But he kisses her cheek and holds her at night, and she’d missed that. Really missed that.  

 

But he’s so different from…from someone like Lexa—so consistent, so steady, gentle and sweet. So reliable and predictable in a way that makes her feel safe. Lexa feels…good. Lexa feels good, and suddenly Clarke wishes she weren’t 3,000 feet above sea level, sitting in the rain, crying tears she can’t even feel. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. “I don’t…I can’t lose him…but I don’t think we’re happy.”

 

“Hey,” Lexa soothes, and Clarke can hear the worry rising in her voice. It makes her feel guilty for bothering Lexa when she knows she must be busy. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

 

“We’ve been fighting this whole trip,” she sniffs and tells herself it’s because it’s chilly. “And you said if we can do a successful trip together then we can do a successful relationship, but look at us. He’s fuming in our tent and I’m alone on a rock sitting in the rain.”

 

“You’re in the rain?”

 

Clarke looks around, then up, blinking against the drizzle a she tries to let the quiet seep in and sooth. “Yeah,” she sighs.

 

“Are you warm enough? Don’t get sick.”

 

“I’m fine, I’m just whining.” She lets out a frustrated whine and puts her face in her wet hands. “Why is it so hard to be with me? Am I really that fucking unbearable that I need a ten step program to get a date and even then I can’t keep someone.”

 

“Clarke—“

 

“No, it’s fine. I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

 

Lexa wants to argue—want to tell her she’s not unbearable and that she just has awful taste in men, and that she deserves so much more. So much better. She deserves to be cherished because if Lexa were being totally honest she’d say she’s never met anyone more special. “Okay,” is all she actually says.

 

“How are you?”

 

“I’m fine too,” Lexa says a little too quickly.

 

“Don’t lie to me.”

 

The CEO let’s out a long, muffled sigh that has Clarke imagining her lounging in a hotel room, running a hand over her face like she always does when she’s stressed. “Nia sent her son to speak with us about the merger which she knows wouldn’t be productive at all given we can’t negotiate with anyone but the head of her company. Which is her. She’s wasting my fucking time,” Lexa bites out, clearly overcome by her annoyance after having to chew it back for so long for the sake of politics.

 

“That sucks. What are you gonna do?”

 

“Nothing. I just have to sit there and talk to that little—“ she clears her throat and starts over. “I’ll just have to see the trip out, and pretend I don’t know exactly what she’s doing.”

 

“How much longer do you have to be there?” Clarke hugs her knees into her chest and rests her elbow on them, the fatigue of not sleeping well the night before finally catching up with her.

 

“Two more days.”

 

Clarke chuckle sardonically. “Good, we can suffer together then.”

 

“If you’re unhappy, Clarke, why don’t you just leave early?”

 

“Because the whole point of this is to reveal problems and work on them. That, and our ride back down the mountain isn’t scheduled to pick us up until Monday.”

 

“You could call and change it. You do have a phone,” Lexa chuckles and Clarke feels herself flutter at the sound. She’d missed it, not having heard it in at least a week given that Lexa had been so knotted up with stress in preparation for this meeting that there’d been almost no joy to her.

 

Clarke lets the soft sound wash over her as she stares out across the mountain range, the deep greens and oranges, yellows and reds barely visible through the low hanging fog. “I’m gonna wait it out, I think.”

 

She wonders what’s behind Lexa’s long sigh she gets in response, but she’s too flustered and tired to give it much thought. Or maybe she just doesn’t want to consider what she thinks she might already know. “Hey, I’m—I’m gonna go now. Okay? I’ll talk to you soon.”

 

There’s a long pause on the line, so long that she thinks maybe the call has dropped. But then Lexa clears her throat and tells her to be safe before she unceremoniously hangs up without so much as a ‘good bye.’

 

“Okay then…” Clarke mutters as she stares at the ended call on her screen.  She sits there like that, staring at her phone with her chin on her knees until she can’t take the cold and the wet any longer, and even then she waits another five or so minutes before making the trek back down to her tent.

 

//

 

 

If it weren’t for her conversation with Clarke that evening, Lexa would blame her inability to sleep that night on her nap. But instead, she had no choice but to blame the phone call because every time she starts to fall asleep she’s transported to a little, red tent, wrapped in blankets and listening to the quick pitter patter of rain above her.

 

It’s not alarming, but its frustrating. Lexa tells herself she doesn’t want to be there. And she doesn’t. She’d give anything to be in her home, in her own bed under a solid roof, maybe even in front of her fireplace.

 

And yet, every time she closes her eyes…

 

She groans as she peels herself out of bed and crosses to the coffee maker in her large, hotel room. If she wasn’t going to sleep, she could at least get some word done.

 

She’s halfway through reading a proposal when her phone buzzes.

 

_Clarke 2:09am_

_the stars are better here than in central park_

Lexa sets her highlighter down and leans back in her chair, smiling slightly.

 

_Lexa 2:15am_

_r u having a better time now? why r u up?_

_Clarke 2:17am_

_can’t sleep_

_Clarke 2:17am_

_and no_

 

_Lexa 2:20am_

_im sorry_

_Clarke 2:21am_

_its fine. not your fault_

_Lexa 2:25am_

_do u want to talk about it?_

_Clarke 2:22am_

_is it me?_

_Lexa 2:28am_

_??_

_Clarke 2:30_

_Nvm_

Lexa sits back up and props her elbow on the table, sighing as she deliberated. When they’d first started all this, Lexa couldn't have cared less who Clarke wound up with. Her job was to get her a steady date, not a knight in shining armor. But now…now Lexa found herself fretting over it. Now, Lexa found herself asking questions. Found herself caring. Found herself infuriated by the idea of Clarke being treated poorly. Worst of all, she finds herself wanting to show Clarke better.

     

_Lexa 2:39am_

_Can I be honest?_

_Clarke 2:42am_

_always_

_Lexa 2:43am_

_It’s you_

_Lexa 2:44am_

_But not in the way that you think_

_Clarke 2:45am_

_okay…_

_Lexa 2:45am_

_I think you pick guys who treat you like shit_

_because it’s what you think you deserve._

_Or like its all you can get._

_Lexa 2:46am_

_But… you’re special, Clarke._ _You don’t have_

_to settle._

_Clarke 2:50am_

_if I don’t settle, I’m alone._

_Clarke 2:55am_

_im so tired of being alone, Lex._

_Lexa 2:57am_

_You’re not alone. I’m here._

_Clarke 3:01am_

_:)_

_Clarke 3:01am_

_that’s sweet, Lex._

_Lexa 3:02am_

_I’m serious. You deserve better. The best._

_Clarke 3:03am_

_Lol. Easy for you to say._

_Lexa 3:04am_

_?_

_Clarke 3:05am_

_You have girls lining up to be with you._

_Must be nice not to have to settle._

Lexa smacks her hand down on the desk, and seriously considers calling Clarke. Maybe even Skyping her—if she could just make her understand, make her see how special she is.

 

_Lexa 3:10am_

_They’re not lining up to be with me._

_They’re lining up to sleep with me._

_That’s a hell of a lot easier than_

_forming any kind of real_

_connection._

_Lexa 3:10am_

_It just takes time, Clarke._

_Clarke 3:13am_

_Is that why u do it? Bc it’s easier?_

 

_Lexa 3:20am_

_You know why I don’t do it._

_Clarke 3:23am_

_Sometimes I don’t believe you._

Lexa stares at the screen until it goes black, then clicks it open again and stares some more. “Neither do I,” she whispers.

 

_Clarke 3:35am_

_Lex?_

 

_Lexa 3:25am_

_You should get some sleep, Clarke._

_Good night._


	6. Meet the parents.

“That bad, huh?”

 

Anya and Clarke lounge on Lexa’s floor picking at their food while Lexa is god knows where doing god knows what—but that’s okay, Clarke didn’t come for her today. Clarke nods.

 

“Well he’s an ass.”

 

That’s what Clarke came for. Anya’s unyielding loyalty and no bullshit logic.

 

“I just don’t know what he expected me to do…like, it’s not my fault it started raining. He said he wanted to do something I like to do, so we did. And then he bitched the whole time.

 

“So he hated it all or just the rain?”

 

“No! All of it! He was like “ew dirt, ew bugs, ew nature. Like—“

 

“He sounds like a little bitch.”

 

Clarke shrugs, feeling both validated by Anya’s commentary and defensive of her boyfriend, regardless of how angry she was with him. “I guess he’s just too pretty for hiking.”

 

“He’s not even that pretty,” Anya snaps.

 

“Anya.” She gives Anya a teasing and skeptical eye brow raise.

 

“Okay, so he’s pretty. But he’s still an ass. You can be pretty and like hiking. Obviously.” Anya gestures to her and the compliment takes Clarke a bit by surprise, not quite used to Anya being so overtly nice to her. Their friendship was still young, but with every lunch date they shared on the floor of Lexa’s office, CEO present or not, she could feel the COO warming up to her. “You know, Lexa loves to hike. Maybe you should go with her next time.”

 

“Oh I know. We’ve been. We went the weekend before last, actually. She’s nuts.”

 

Anya laughs and nods, picking at some bokchoi. “Yeah I don’t go with her anymore. She practically runs up the damn mountains.”

 

Clarke chuckles, remembering their weekend and how she’d trailed the fit CEO until Lexa finally took mercy on her and slowed her pace.  “Our hike last weekend is what gave me the idea to go with Finn. And she told me about how she took Costia camping once and they shared a bonfire and s’mores and other fun campy things like sex under the stars.” She sighs. “We could have had it all.”

 

“Or you could have had ticks all up in there, god no. Why would you ever have sex outside?”

 

“I think it sounds romantic!”

 

“Yeah, well, with you and your color theory about relationships, I’m not surprised. Is he any good?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“In bed.”

 

“Oh.” Clarke blushes hard, and for a fleeting moment she feels an indescribable relief knowing that Lexa isn’t there. Though, she’s not exactly sure why. She’d always been comfortable talking about sex, and she and Lexa had hypothesized about it all the time—between she and Finn, that is.

 

“I take that as a yes?”

 

Clarke chuckles in embarrassment and shrugs. “I don’t actually know.”

 

This catches Anya’s attention. She smirks widly. “Oh my god. You haven’t done it yet.”

 

Clarke shakes her head.

 

“Why the hell not?”

 

“I don’t know.” And she really doesn’t. She’s thought about it—not often, but she _has_ occasionally wondered what it might be like. When Lexa had asked her if they’d slept together yet, Clarke admitted that she was nervous. It’d been a long time since she’d slept with anyone she had feelings for. She’d dropped it as soon as she saw the distressed look come over Lexa’s face. The CEO had tried to hide it, but Clarke knew her too well by that point.

 

“Is he a bad kisser? Hey. Clarke.” Anya snaps her fingers in Clarke’s face.

 

“What?”

“Is he a bad kisser?”

 

“Oh. Uh…” She thinks about it, tilting her head and squinting.  Suddenly Anya can see what Lexa had meant when she said the girl sometimes looked like a puppy. “No,” she says tentatively. “No, he’s not bad. Per say.”

 

“Per say?”

 

“I’ve just never really liked kissing. It’s…I don’t know. I don’t think it’s all it’s cracked up to be.”

 

Anya barks in laughter and shakes her head in disbelief. “I think you might be doing it wrong, Griffin.”

 

“No! No, I know. I just. I don’t know. I don’t like the way it feels most of the time. Everybody talks about how amazing and good it feels, but I’ve never been a huge fan. That’s weird, right?”

 

Anya nods and smirks around an egg roll. “So you guys haven’t talked since you got back?”

 

Clarke shakes her head. “Not really. A couple texts here and there.”

 

“What’s Lexa’s stupid next step?”

  
“Hey.” Clarke bristles ever so slightly and glares at her friend, though that at least is a little bit teasing. “They’re not stupid.”

  
“Griffin,” Anya challenges.

  
“They’re not stupid, but I’ll admit they’re a bit silly.”

 

“I just think it’s hilarious that Lexa is dishing this shit out, meanwhile she’s probably the loneliest person in the world.”

 

Anya says it as mostly a joke, but it hits Clarke right in the chest. She’d only recently found out about Lexa’s mom and brother and their untimely death that led right into her father’s and then her uncle’s. A couple years later, Costia would follow suit.

 

“She has you,” Clarke says to Anya when she’s done wallowing in her thoughts.

 

Anya grins. “And you. The girl who talks with her hands.”

 

“What?”

 

Anya just keeps grinning. “Nothing. So, what’s the next step?”

 

“Oh.” Clark flushes slightly.  “Meet the parents. Which obviously I don’t think is happening anytime soon.”

 

“Does he know why you’re pissed?”

 

“Who?”

 

“Finn, obviously. ”

 

“Right. Yeah. I snapped at him about it and told him he’s got to stop punishing me for things I can’t control.”

 

“Yeah, that’s shitty.”

 

“Like…the rain? Really? Do I look like fucking Zeus? I don’t control the weather.”

 

Anya snorts. “You’ve been hanging out with Lexa too much. She’s turned you into a nerd.”

 

“Whatever. My point is—“

 

“I get it. He was an ass.”

 

“And he’s been doing it more lately,” Clarke sighs, starting to fade away into her thoughts again. “The other week he was bitching about how I smile more with Lexa than I do with him. Like…I can’t control that.”

 

“When has he even been around the two of you?”

 

“He was talking about the Thanksgiving Party.”

 

“That was like a month ago,” Anya says, rolling her eyes at the man-pain of it all.

 

“Believe me, I know,” Clarke sighs. Then riling back up, “Besides, it’s not even true!”

 

“Oh it’s definitely true, Griffin. The pair of you are disgusting together. I’ve never seen Lexa so happy in her life. And I’ve known her since high school.”

 

Clarke bites back a smile and looks at the food on the ground, shy of the weightiness of Anya’s gaze. “I think there was a compliment in there somewhere.”

 

“Don’t bet on it,” Anya teases. “Speaking of…where is that big, giddy nerd?”

 

“She texted saying she’d be out for lunch. Had to run an errand or something?”

 

“Yeah, no I know. She had to go to Midtown for a meeting, but she should be back by now. Let me just check in real quick.”

 

“Yeah, sure.” Clarke leans back on her hands and takes in her familiar surroundings as Anya rattles off a texts. One of Lexa’s coats is draped on the back of the chaise, and without thinking she pops up and pads over to it, wrapping it around her. “I’m cold,” she says when Anya quirks an eyebrow at her. She then wanders around to Lexa’s desk and plops down  get a good look at her new painting on the wall. “This looks good here,” she muses, studying the colors and lines as if it weren’t her own.

 

“She loves it,” Anya throws out mindlessly with her eyes still on her phone. “She’s not answering.”

 

“Try calling?”

 

“I did.”

 

“Maybe she’s still in the meeting.”

 

“No,” Anya sighs, her voice tinting with concern, “I got an email a couple hours ago with the meeting summary.”

 

“Maybe she’s on her way back and doesn’t want to pick up while driving?”

 

“Maybe,” Anya murmurs, still looking at her phone as if she could will a response from the CEO into existence if she glared hard enough.

 

“Oh wait.” Clarke pulls her phone out of her pocket and holds it up. “She’s calling me.”

 

“Oh good.” Anya won’t admit out loud that she’s relieved, but she doesn’t have to. Clarke gives her a knowing smile before she picks up.

 

“Hey, Lex. Where are you?”

 

“Clarke?”

 

Clarke furrows in confusion and pulls the phone away from her ear to make sure she’d read the incoming call correctly. She had. “Hello?”

 

“Clarke, sweetheart, is that you?”

 

“Mom?” Clarke meets Anya’s eyes, and when the COO questions it all Clarke can do is shrug in equal confusion.

 

“Yes, Clarke. Do you know the owner of this phone? Alexandria Woods?”

 

“Uh….yeah? Why? What—why do you have her phone?”  

 

“Sweetheart, I want you to stay calm, okay? I’m at Memorial. Ms. Woods has been in a bad accident and is currently in surgery. She has no next of kin in her file and I haven’t been able to reach her emergency contact. You were the last called in her recents.”

 

Clarke wants to drop her phone. She wants to drop, herself, as her heart begins to pound so hard she loses her breath.

 

“Clarke?”

 

Clarke stares wide-eyed at Anya, trying to speak, but failing miserably.

 

“Clarke, honey? Breathe. You’re okay.”

 

“Mom—“ her voice cracks and Anya is by her side in a second, desperately trying to figure out what is happening. Clarke waves her away and jumps out of the desk chair.

 

“Clarke, tell me what’s happening,” Anya whispers and gets more hand waving and a shaking head. “Clarke—“

 

“We have to go to the hospital,” she snaps pulling her ear form the phone as she tries to both listen to her mother and talk to the frantic COO.

 

“What?”

 

“There’s been an accident. Lexa’s in surgery.”

 

“An accident? Is it bad? Clarke—“

 

“I don’t know!” Clarke yells, and wipes at her eyes, not bothering to lock the office door behind them as they run out. “Sorry mom, say that again? Okay. Okay, we’re on our way. How long? I don’t know…uh, god, hold on.” She turns to Anya as they bolt down the stairs, trying their best not to fall. “How far are we from the Hospital?”

 

“Which one?”

 

“Memorial.”

 

“Uh,” Anya pants, trying to think, “fifteen minutes if we run. Taking a cab will take too long.”

 

“We can be there in fifteen, mom. I will. No, we’re going on foot. Okay. Okay, bye. Wait! Mom? Please—“ she struggles to catch her breath, “Please take care of her.”

 

//

 

They make it in twelve minutes and Clarke is somewhere between vomiting and fainting by the time they tumble into the ER lobby. Abby is waiting for them to arrive, and when Clarke stands back up after folding in half, panting with her hands on her knees, Abby has Clarke’s cheeks in her hands.

 

“Breathe, Clarke.”

 

“Where is she?”

 

“She’s sedated right now.”

 

“Is she okay?” Anya chimes in, stepping in beside Clarke.

 

“Mom, this Anya. She works with Lexa and is her best friend.”

 

Abby eyes them quietly for a moment then nods and ushers them into a consultation cubby. Once she’s closed the door she looks at them gravely. “You did not hear this from me, understood?”

 

Both women nod.

  
“I’m only telling you this because she has no next of kin and we can’t reach her emergency contact, and I want her to be provided for.”

 

“Mom,” Clarke croaks, stepping forward, “just tell me how she is. Please. Is she going to be okay?”

 

“Despite the severity of the wreck, she got out relatively unscathed. She had a collapsed lung, some internal bleeding, and a concussion.”

 

“Jesus,” Anya hisses, running a hand aggressively though her hair. “That doesn't sound unscathed. What happened?”

 

“I don’t know, exactly. From the reports, it looks like a semi slid into her lane.”

 

“I’ll need to call Gus, her lawyer," Anya says professionally as Clarke is still reeling from the news.  "Who is her emergency contact? Can you tell me?”

 

Abby nods. “Costia Green? Ring any bells?”

 

Clarke wants to cry and Anya’s face falls. “Yes, she’s Lexa’s…they were together. Costia passed away several years ago. I guess Lexa never thought to change it. She’s never at the doctors…she’s usually so healthy.” Anya’s voice finally breaks and Clarke can’t bear to hear it. Luckily, Anya excuses herself anyways to call Gus.

 

“Sweetheart, it’s okay,” Abby sighs, wiping at Clarke’s cheeks when they're alone again. “How do you know this woman, Clarke?”

 

Clarke take a deep breath. “She’s—” She stops. A friend? No, that couldn’t possibly cover it. But they weren’t anything more. At least not so much in language.  “She’s just…she’s special to me. We met through Octavia.”

 

“Oh. _Oh._ ” Abby’s eyes widen and it takes Clarke a moment to realize why.

 

“Oh, no…no, not like that, mom. She’s just a friend.” Never before had that twisted so sharply in her stomach and felt so bad. So wrong. 

 

“I see. So you and Finna are still—“

 

But Clarke cuts her off. “So, she’s okay? Like, really, okay?”

 

“She’s tough, I’ll give her that.”

 

“Just tell me she’s going to be okay and leave it at that,” Clarke pleads.

 

“Clarke,” Abby shakes her head and guides her daughter out of the consultation cubby. “You know how these things go. It’s day by day.”

 

“Mom—“ Clarke cries.

 

“She’s okay for now, Clarke. Take comfort in that, okay? I’m not going to lie to you. You know too much having grown up here, following me around. Try not to worry about it for now.”

 

“Easier said than done,” Clarke grumbles, letting her mom lead her back out into the waiting room.

 

Abby smiles sympathetically at her as she tucks a cold, wet strand of hair back into place. “How about some coffee?” 

 

Clarke looks longingly towards the double doors leading back to the rooms and stalls.

 

“Clarke.”

 

“She’s sedated, you say?”

 

“Yes. To help expedite the healing process.”

 

“But she’s come to once already, right?” Clarke asks, still looking towards the double doors.

 

“Yes, after surgery. Her vitals looked good.”

 

"And there's absolutely no way I can go see her right now?"

 

"Unfortunately, no. Not right now, sweetheart."

 

After a long moment of deliberation, Clarke concedes and follows her mother down to the cafeteria, not hearing a word out of her mouth. She’s too busy seeing Lexa’s sweet smile and gentle eyes in her mind, and trying to keep her lunch down when she imagines them covered in—

 

She shutters and forces herself to pay closer attention to her mother’s occasional comments she thinks are meant to sooth.

 

“So, how is your artwork coming?” Abby asks as she hands her a cup of coffee.

 

“Hm?”

 

“Your artwork? Feeling good about it?”

 

“Oh.” Clarke tries for a smile and nods. “Yeah, it’s going well.”

 

“Good. That’s good, Clarke. And how are you and Finn doing?” Her mother tries again.

 

“Oh god.” Clarke goes instantly cold and rigid as her stomach flips violently, and something, she doesn’t know what, but something inside her desperately does not want to think or talk about him. “I really don’t care right now.”

 

“Oh, honey,” Abby coos, “I’m sure you’ll work things out.”

 

“Yeah, I’m really not concerned about it at the moment,” Clarke bites out, eyes fixed on her coffee. It hits her suddenly, swiftly and powerfully just how unconcerned about it she is with things thrown into perspective.

 

She feels guilty for snapping when they’re throw into silence and her mother looks lost sitting across the table from her.  “Am I keeping you from work?” She asks, softly in a truce.

 

“Oh, no. I’m off right now.” Abby gives her a small smile and a reassuring pat to the hand. “I’d like to go check on…Lexa?”

 

“Yeah, Lexa. She goes by Lexa.”

 

Abby hums. “I’d like to check on her before I start my next my shift, so I’ll need to go soon.”

 

“Can I go with you?”

 

Clarke knows the look Abby gives her, and it makes her sink before the words are even out the doctor’s mouth. “I know. I know,” she says before Abby can actually say it. She already knows, she doesn’t need to hear it too. “Will you at least keep me updated? I’m gonna stick around.”

 

“Of course, sweetheart. Chin up, it’s just a waiting game now,” Abby says, and thumbs sweetly at her daughter’s chin.

 

//

 

And wait she does. For two long days—sometimes with Anya, sometimes her mother. Finn even shows up one morning, but it’s not long before he slips into confrontation about Clarke’s cold shoulder from last weekend, and Clarke absolutely can’t hear it. Not right now. Not when it feels so insignificant given where she’s sitting and why.

 

“Can we talk later, Finn?” She sighs eventually, midway through one of his heated speeches. His mouth gapes open like he can hardly believe this isn’t what she wants to be talking about. And maybe he’s right. Maybe blowing her boyfriend off in favor of a friend makes her a bad girlfriend. Maybe the fact that she just really couldn’t care less, no longer all that interested in seeing it resolve, should tell her something.

 

She kisses him goodbye none the less—and she still doesn’t like it.

 

//

 

She’s shaking with nerves when her mother informs her that Lexa has finally woken up after being weaned off the sedatives last night. She still can’t see her—not for a few more days. Even as Chief of Surgery, her mother can’t get Clarke, a non-relative, a nothing in the eyes of medicine, into see Lexa until she’s cleared for public visitors. It's infuriating.

 

Her mother updates her daily, sometimes even hourly on Lexa’s progress. All of which Clarke receives from the lobby and cafeteria of the hospital. Sometimes, she even feels a twinge of anger steeped in jealousy when her mother sends a text or picture. She knows she shouldn’t, but the aggravation itches under her skin knowing that someone who doesn’t care about her nearly as much, someone who couldn’t possibly care about her nearly as much, is with her just feet away behind those terrible double doors.

 

“I’m going crazy. Like actually crazy,” she tells Anya one day over a stale donut from the cafeteria.

 

“But she’s okay. And besides, look at all these gorgeous doctors walking around,” Anya says, eyes doing just that.

 

“I thought you and Raven had a thing or something.”

 

Anya nearly chokes on her coffee. “What?!”

 

“Yeah. Lexa said you guys were into each other—“

 

“Lexa needs to keep her big fucking mouth shut,” Anya growls, and if it weren’t for the COO’s obvious discomfort, Clarke would chew her out for speaking of the ill, _her_ ill, that way.

 

Instead, she just backs off and nods as Anya continues to fume quietly.

 

“So why are you going crazy?” She gets asked a while later. Clarke recognizes a peace offering when she sees one, so she slides Anya a cup of coffee when she sits back down a second later with two.

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” She says  and it's frustrating and infuriating to be feeling _so_ much and be able to explain _so_ little. “I can just feel this thing…like right below the surface and it feel so massive, you know? Like, like it’s just waiting to explode. Does that make any sense?”

 

Anya grins. “None at all.”

 

Clarke huffs and moves onto a soggy banana and some bitter orange juice. Anya grimaces as she watches her friend nervous-eat, and wonders just what it is Clarke could possibly be feeling. She’s intrigued. And maybe even a tad bit worried. She’s never seen Clarke so worked up, and the idea of Lexa being in the middle of it all…it makes her nervous.

 

“I just feel like I’m missing something. Something big. Important. I don’t know.” Before Clarke can go more into it, her phone dings, and everything seems to inch a little closer to making more sense. “We can go see her now,” she whispers in awe. “But…” her face falls, “only one at a time.”

 

Anya chuckles and takes away Clarke’s soggy banana and bitter orange just. “Go on, it’s fine. I’ll wait.”

 

“Are you sure?” Clarke’s already standing up.

 

“Yeah, go for it. Wouldn’t want you to explode now would we?”

 

//

 

Explode is very nearly what she does when she shuffles into Lexa’s room feeling shy, for god knows what reason, and relieved.

 

Lexa is sitting up, nodding ever so slightly to Abby’s poking and prodding, and it stills something in Clarke to see them like that. So soft. So close. She hangs in the doorway as she watches and suddenly she’s laughing. No, crying. No...both. She’s laughing and crying and it draws both Abby and Lexa’s attention, and she can no longer just stand there.

 

“Clarke—“ Abby says, carefully, sensing her daughter’s distress.

 

“I’m sorry,” Clarke chokes, still laughing and now wiping at her eyes, “it’s just that I finally…I think I finally get it now.”

 

 The blue and purple around Lexa's eyes makes her heart clench, but if she looks hard enough she can see that soft green she loves so much, and everything is so overwhelming all at once, because she gets it. She finally fucking gets it.

 

Clarke Griffin is in love.

 

//

 

“You know,” Clarke whispers, her hand running gently through Lexa’s hair as the battered and beautiful CEO starts to nod off again, “this isn’t how I imagined step 6 going.”

 

Lexa’s eyes blink open as she grins sleepily, the tiniest of chuckles escaping out her chapped lips.

 

"For the record, I think she likes you."

 

"I like her too," Lexa whispers. "She gives me ice chips."

 

"Are you thirsy?" She asks, suddenly worried that she'd been so caught up in fulfilling her own need of being close to Lexa, she hadn't bothered to pay attention to Lexa's.

 

Thankfully, Lexa shakes her head. So Clarke leans her head down, nuzzling her face next to Lexa’s so that she can scatter her cheek and temple with soft, chaste kisses. “You scared me,” she murmurs, feeling the hot prick of tears start in the corner of her eyes again.

  
“I’m still here,” Lexa croaks, and with great effort, she brings her hand up to scratch at the nape of Clarke’s neck.

 

“Don’t do that again.”

 

Lexa shakes her head and sighs, and Clarke can tell she’s right on the edge of sleep.

 

“In fact, you’re not allowed to drive anymore, period,” Clarke teases. She gets a barely there smile and an almost nothing nod in response.

 

Lexa can barely keep her eyes open let alone listen to any sudden proclamation of love Clarke might have for her, but laying here, listening to the sound of Lexa’s soft, amazing, miraculous breathing, to the sound of her fierce, unyielding, incredible heartbeat, it’s enough. It’s all enough for now.

 

In lieu of those disastrous three words, Clarke presses three little kisses into the soft, peach fuzz of Lexa’s cheek, and lets herself finally get some sleep.  


	7. Confess. Tell Him How You Feel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I made this one considerably longer to make up for it!

 

“So, I’m meeting Finn for dinner tonight,” Clarke tries carefully, monitoring Lexa’s reactions as she threads through her hair, braiding it for her.  But Lexa is still hopped up on drugs and doesn’t do much of anything besides an occasional nod or short, struggled sentence. Though this time, Lexa twists around to try to look at her.

 

“Thought you were done with him.”

 

Clarke gently prods her head back to forward and smiles to herself because maybe, just maybe, there’s a hint of disappointment in Lexa’s voice. “I am,” she continues, getting to the end of the strand and starting on a new one, “but I think I owe him a conversation, you know?”

 

Lexa shrugs, and when Clarke peers around her, she can see that her eyelids are drooping. “You don’t think so?”

 

“You don’t owe anything,” Lexa half sighs, half slurs, head beginning to sink. Clarke chuckles and moves out from behind her to let her lie back down, helping her to do so.

 

“Go to sleep, Lex.”

 

Lexa nods, then furrows. “Leaving?”

 

Clarke scoots in beside her and curls up, careful when she places her head on Lexa’s chest. Careful to avoid the gash just below and the blossoms of purple and black bruises garnishing her ribs. “No, I’m right here, don’t worry. Just sleep.”

 

Lexa lifts her arm to hold Clarke close, but it slides away as soon as it lands as Lexa falls asleep and Clarke smiles, content.

 

//

 

“So how did he take it?”

 

Clarke and Anya sit on Lexa’s living room floor, munching at their signature Chinese food as Lexa rests in the other room. Clarke’s silence is suspicious and she knows it. Suddenly her egg rolls are the most interesting thing in the world.

 

“Clarke…”

 

“I didn’t tell him.”

 

“What?! Clarke, why?”

 

“I don’t know,” Clarke groans, flinching when Anya flicks rice at her from her plate. “Hey.”

 

“You need to tell him. You’re not doing him any favors by dragging it on.”

 

“But he was so sweet and pitiful…I just couldn’t do it. He has puppy dog eyes.”

 

Anya rolls her own, decidedly _not,_ puppy dog eyes and dramatically drops her fork with a clink. “Clarke.”

 

“Anya.”

 

“ _Clarke._ ”

 

“Look, I know,” Clarke sighs, getting up from the floor to put her dishes away. Anya follows her into the kitchen, relentless. “But he said he was going to be better.”

 

“And you’re going to let him?”

 

“I mean…I don’t know. Shouldn’t I?”

 

Anya scoffs. “No? You told me you’re in love with Lexa. What part of giving Finn another chance sounds like a good idea to you?”

 

Clarke’s eyes widen. “Okay, one, don’t say that out loud when Lexa is literally like 100 feet away. And two, I was drunk that night, and vulnerable—“

 

“Vulnerable? Really?”

 

“Lexa hemorrhaged! And had to go back into emergency surgery, yes I was _vulnerable._ ”

 

Anya rolls her eyes again and crosses her arms, clearly needing more than one gesture of annoyance to convey just how annoyed she is. “You may have been ‘vulnerable’ but you were also telling the truth. And you also promised me that you weren’t going to hurt her.”

 

“I’m not,” Clarke mutters, deflating because Anya is right. Anya is always right.

 

“Yes you are. You can’t act like you’re in love with her one day and go out on a date with Finn the next. That’s not fair to her or him or _you._ You need to figure your shit out, Griffin, before everyone gets hurt.”

 

Clarke swallows. “I’m scared.”

 

“Oh please. Of what?”

 

“Of getting hurt.”

 

“Well yeah, that’s literally what I’m saying.”

 

“No, I mean…Lexa’s life is literally based on a disinterest of falling in love. She thinks it’s stupid and a waste of time. I’m not even sure if she believes in love, Anya. You said it yourself, smashing two colors together doesn’t work.”

 

Anya shrugs, fixing herself a glass of water. “Maybe I was wrong.”

 

“You know her better than anyone.”

 

“Not anymore.”

 

Clarke scoffs.  

 

“Seriously. Look—“ Anya takes a long sip, making Clarke wait, “—Lexa likes you. A lot. And I can’t tell you if that’s platonic or romantic or not, but I can tell you that Lexa isn’t a hugger and she hugs you. She’s not sweet with her words, she doesn’t compliment people, and she is definitely not soft, and yet with you she is all of those things to a disgusting degree. I can’t make you any promises, but if I were a betting woman…” she cocks her brow, making a point.

 

“So I should talk to her…”

 

Anya nods. Then, “Hey, do you have any cookies or something?”

 

Clarke laughs. “Top right.”

 

“You’re the best. Lexa is starving me making me order from that vegan place everyday.”

 

“You know you don’t have to order from the same place she does.”

 

“It’s called commiserating, Clarke. I can’t eat pizza while she’s stuck to salad.”

 

“Stuck, my ass. Lexa would eat salad every second of the day if she could.”

 

“What would I eat?” Lexa asks, yawning as she shuffles into the kitchen.

 

“Hey you,” Clarke greets, immediately crossing to her, “how’d you sleep?”

 

Anya gags at the gushiness of it all, rolling her eyes for extra effect when Clarke sends her a glare over her shoulder.

 

Lexa toys with the hem of Clarke shirt, still blinking sleep out of her eyes. “Good. This shirt is cute on you,” she says, her voice multiple layers of scratchy and raspy.

 

Clarke smiles. “It’s new.”

 

“I like it.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Lexa nods through another yawn and looks bleary eyed at Anya. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Wow, thanks, Lex. I’ve had a great day, glad you asked. I went grocery shopping this morning, then I did some laundry and stopped by the office. Then—“

 

“Oh my god,” Lexa sighs, rolling her eyes, “you’re ridiculous. Fine, hi, how are you? What are you doing here?”

 

“Lex—“ Clarke chides.

 

“No, I just mean, don’t you have more interesting things to do than to sit in my house all day while I sleep? It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon, you should be out enjoying yourself.”

 

“I am enjoying myself. You live in a penthouse with a pool and cable, I’ll take my Saturday’s here anytime, thank you very much,” Anya snaps, though playfully, and glares. “Besides, this one needed company.”

 

Clarke grins, “guilty as charged. To be fair, I did put her to work.”

 

“Yeah, look at your windows. Spotless.”

 

“I have a crew for that, you know…” Lexa says, frowning. She turns back to Clarke. “You don’t have to clean while you’re here, Clarke.”

 

Clarke shrugs. “I want to. Besides, you’re letting me use the upstairs sun room for my painting, keeping downstairs clean is the least I can do.”

 

“That wasn’t reciprocity, Clarke. I don’t expect to be paid back for it.”

 

“No, but I want to.”

 

Lexa furrows and goes to say something, but Clarke is already disappearing back into the kitchen. “I made you soup for lunch. How’s that sound?”

 

“What’s that other smell?”

 

“What other—oh. Chinese. Anya and I ordered some.” She wanders back out, glancing at Lexa’s intrigued face. It makes her smile to see Lexa’s curious eyes and mildly intrigued expression. “Did you want to see if you could keep some down? We’ve got lo mein and steamed veggies. The broccoli might be a little hard on your stomach, but everything else might be okay.”

 

Lexa shuffles further into the kitchen, sniffing at the cartons of leftovers. “Rice?”

 

“Yeah, right here.” Clarke slides a carton towards her.

 

“Can you put it in the soup?”

 

Clarke nods enthusiastically, relieved and excited to see Lexa’s appetite starting to come back. “Of course. How about some toast?”

 

Lexa shrugs, and just as quickly, it’s gone. Clarke let’s out a soft chuckle and pours the rice into the pot of soup, stirring it in as Lexa wanders over to the island and plops down with a slight hiss.

 

Clarke glances over her shoulder. “You okay?”

  
“Mhm. Just a little sore.”

 

“Do you want your meds? You’re due for another does in a few minutes here.”

 

As Lexa deliberates, there’s a thud as Anya smacks her hands down on the table by way of getting up. “As much as I love third-wheeling, I’m gonna head out. You cool here with the invalid, blondey?”

 

Clarke rolls her eyes and bids her off, reminding her take her reports from the coffee table in the living room. And then they’re alone, Lexa slumping at the table and Clarke humming easily as she finished up with Lexa’s soup.

 

“So, meds?” She asks as she brings the bowl over. As she sets it’s down, her hand instinctively slides behind Lexa’s neck, giving it a few gentle massage.

 

“I’m okay,” Lexa crackles, voice raspy and catching.

 

Reluctant with worry, Clarke nods and returns to the back of the kitchen to start on the dishes.  She’s about halfway through, feeling domestic and content with her hands in the warm, soapy water, when Lexa strangles out her name accompanied by the harsh clatter of utensils hitting the bowl.

  
Clarke whips around, eyes wide and finds Lexa hunched over, hand pressed to her side. “Lexa, what wrong?” She rushes to her, immediately cradling her cheeks.

  
“I think I need my meds,” Lexa clenches out, breathing is short hisses through her nose.

 

Clarke is gone and back in seconds, her hands finding Lexa’s face again once the pills are down. Lexa droops, forehead falling to Clarke’s as she holds her eyes shut in pain, focusing on breathing through it.

 

“You’re okay,” Clarke whispers, hand skirting up Lexa’s cheek to card through her hair. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”

 

It passes relatively quickly, the oxycodone doing its job and numbing Lexa out in a matter of minutes. It’s a struggle to get her back to bed with Lexa’s large framing leaning down on her heavily, but she trudges on until Lexa is under the covers and sound asleep. She watches her breathe for a moment, counting inhales and exhales until the panic in her stomach starts to settle.

 

//

 

Lexa awakens, stilted and uneasy, the fuzzy images of a dream playing at the fringes of her memory—tendrils of silky, blonde hair; soft, pink lips full and much too close; blue eyes, wide and warm and staring at her with wide open frontiers of emotion…

 

Lexa blinks and bites down hard on her lower lip, staving off the images, chalking them and the strange sensations in her body up to the narcotics coating her system.

 

These happenings weren’t new since the drugs, but they were certainly stronger. And more frequent. Lexa found herself _craving_ Clarke; aching for her soft, gentle touch. Her understanding eyes and soothing words. She found herself addicted to the fullness only Clarke could provide, a wonderful distraction from the usual gaping void that consumed Lexa’s day-to-day. Her former therapist would call it grief, but she knows herself well enough to now that that day had passed. Losing Costia had been hard, had torn her apart, but the grief was gone, as well as the pain.

 

What was left was disinterest. Disinterest and boredom and loneliness that was so suffocating at times it’d make Lexa dizzy. It didn’t matter where—the office, the supermarket, the car. Sometimes, she would just come to a halt while everything else just span and span and span, threatening to suck her down to the ground. And sometimes she wanted to let it. Because for Lexa, life was difficult and overwhelming. It provided very little reward for the amount that it took out of her and for a while, she’d been aimless. For a while she’d just wandered around, that gaping void threatening to swallow her hole.

 

Until it’d started to change. Until blips of new life registered on her radar. New faces, new restaurants and parks and experiences, all forced into her life by way of this boisterous, kind, beautiful, intriguing creature Octavia had called, “a friend in need.” And suddenly her morning became welcomed, her days filled with wonderfully thrilling anticipation, and her nights an unwanted departure from it all.

 

Suddenly there’d been something, someone, that made her feel alive again.

 

And that was very, very bad.

 

“Lex?” There’s a small knock at the door before Clarke pokes her head in, a tired smile playing at her lips.

 

Lexa clocks it and sits up, worried. “You okay?”

 

Clarke nods, though it’s not entirely convincing. “How do you feel? I just got back from the store. Wanted to check in.”

 

Lexa eyes her suspiciously, noting the paleness of her skin, the dark circles above her cheeks. The red rims encasing slightly too shiny eyes. “I’m fine. Are you?” She asks again.

 

“Yeah.” Clarke gives her a forced smile. “Ready for dinner? I picked up some white meat and leafy greens. How’s your nausea?”

  
Lexa purses her lips, studying Clarke’s face. There’s something off, just beyond the tangible reach. It’s more of a feeling. A very disturbing feeling that makes her stomach curl and her chest reverberate with the thudding of her heart. “It’s fine, Clarke. But you’re not. Com’ere.”

 

Clarke hesitates in the door way before giving in and crossing the room under Lexa’s studious gaze. She’s gentle when she sits on the bed, careful not to jostle.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“It’s nothing.”

 

“Clarke. Tell me.”

 

“Really. It’s nothing, Lex. It’s no big deal.”

 

“It’s upsetting you.”

 

Clarke nods, barely, sad and tired.

 

“So tell me.”

 

“Can I ask you something?” On Lexa’s nod, she shifts, hands tangling in her lap. “Am I hard to deal with?”

 

Lexa’s brow furrows so deeply, the space between her brows almost completely disappears. “ _What_? Why would you think that?”

 

Clarke shakes her head, going mute again.

 

“Clarke. Why would you think that?”

 

She shrugs. “Just wondering.”

 

Lexa reaches up and twirls the tips of Clarke’s hair between her fingers before she realizes what she’s doing and pulls away. “Did you someone make you feel that way?”

 

Clarke goes silent for a tangible moment, eyes blurring out of focus on the wall in front of them. Lexa’s hand is halfway up her back in a reassuring rub, when Clarke sighs and stands up, plastering on a smile that makes Lexa’s heart ache. “I’m gonna get dinner started.”

 

“Clarke—“

 

“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me, kay?”

 

She’s gone before Lexa can call out to her again.

 

//

 

A week passes, and Clarke never mentions their strange conversation again, but Lexa notices a change. Her shoulders slump more often and her face falls into a sad sort of frown when she’s not being spoken too.

 

Even with Anya’s weekly visits, Clarke is quiet and somber, forcing out pleasantries that may fool others, but to Lexa and Anya, it’s unnervingly fake.

 

For a minute, Lexa starts to wonder if it’s her. If maybe Clarke is resenting the amount of time she’s been spending with Lexa. Cooking for her, driving her to PT, holding her through the night when even the pain meds didn’t seem to do the trick. But when she questions her one night, the two practically entangled on the couch with a movie, Clarke balks and tells her not to be ridiculous. And for the first time in a while, Clarke looks genuine and Lexa finds herself believing her.

 

//

 

Clarke grows touchier as the days pass. Lexa has noticed her drifting away mentally and verbally, but she more than makes up for it physically. She nuzzles into Lexa’s shoulder whenever they’re close, or wraps her arms around her waist when she’s in the kitchen. She holds her hand under the pretense of helping her balance as she goes through her PT exercises and gives her sweet, drawn-out massages to soothe her aching muscles afterwards.

 

When their friends come to visit for a dinner party once Lexa is off her higher-dose pain meds, Clarke sits in her lap all night, absent-mindedly playing with the loose tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck.  

 

It wouldn’t be a problem if every touch of Clarke’s didn’t intimately remind her of the fact that she’s terribly, painfully, disastrously in love with the girl. And that no amount of fear or trepidation has done anything to whittle away those feelings. In fact, exhausted and frustrated and irrefutably head over heels, if anything she’d finally just become resigned to it all.

 

It’s at its worst when Clarke falls asleep with her head in her lap one night, some lame RomCom playing in the background of Lexa’s living room. She can’t help herself from running her hand through Clarke’s hair, going so far as to trace the soft, round curve of her cheek.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispers, eyes stinging slightly because it’s painfully true. Clarke is the most beautiful creature she’s ever experienced, inside and out, and there are so many reasons why she can’t have her.  She gently slides Clarke’s head out of her lap and covers her with a blanket before leaving a note and slipping out of the apartment. A coward’s exit, she knows, but fear has always been her best friend.

 

//

 

“You definitely should not be drinking.”

 

Lexa doesn’t bother to turn at the voice, just sips her “something strong” and stares straight ahead.

 

“I’m serious, Lexa.”

 

“Did you need something?”

 

“Just wanted to make sure you’re alive. Clarke was worried.”

 

“How’d you know I was here?”

 

Anya slips onto the stool beside the CEO and mimics her stature, elbows on the bar, eyes straight ahead. “Clarke called.” She waves down the bar tender. “Said you disappeared a week ago with a note saying you needed to clear your head. This is where you clear your head.” 

 

“They should call you Sherlock.”

 

“Where’ve you been sleeping?”

 

Lexa knocks back the rest of her drink. Hails down another. “Office.”

 

“There’s no one at the office over the weekend.”

 

“That was kinda the point.”

 

“You could have have fallen. Hemorrhaged. Re-broken a rib, Lexa—”

 

Lexa chuckles. “You make me sound like I’m eighty.”

 

“Hey, this isn’t a joke,” Anya snaps. “You shouldn’t be running off. You’re still healing.”

 

“It’s been months, Anya. I’m fine. Back off.”

 

Lexa goes to take another sip, but Anya grabs her forearm and shoves it back down, sloshing liquid everywhere.

 

“What the fuck, An?” Lexa hisses as she jerks back to miss the spill.

 

“Are you _stupid_? What’s the matter with you?”

 

Lexa wipes herself down, wipes at the bar with a soggy napkin, to no avail. “Watch your tone. We may be friends, but I’m still your superior—”

 

“Oh shove it up your ass, Lexa. And fucking look at me.”

 

Begrudgingly, Lexa turns to look at her. Eyes angry and bloodshot.

 

“What’s your problem?”

 

“That’s a great way to get people to open up, An, you should go into therapy. Really.”

 

“Cut the bull, Lexa. I know wallowing when I see it. What’s wrong? What happened?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“One word answers?” Anya scoffs. “Are we five?”

 

“Are you done?” Lexa snaps back, fingers already curling around another glass.

 

“How many is that?”

 

“Why? You counting? Lexa smirks, but it’s crooked and angry. She revels in it—the self-loathing. The bitterness. This had always been who she was. Clarke—Clarke had been a momentary lapse of judgement. A minor blip of curiosity. The softness she’d displayed— the tenderness and selfless interest…the _love_ she’d had for her—all just a fun time. Something to amuse herself with.  

 

“Did you take your pain meds today? If you mixed narcotics with alcohol, Lexa, I swear to god—“

 

“I didn’t take them.”

 

Anya relaxes, then inflames again. “You should be taking them. You know the pain sneaks up on you.”

 

Lexa tips her glass towards her. “This does the job just fine.”

 

“So you’re drinking again. Is that what this is?”

 

“This is called me getting back to _my_ life on _my_ terms.” 

 

Anya rolls her eyes. “What does that even mean?”

 

“It means—“ Lexa takes a large sip, hisses the liquid down her throat, “—I’m taking control back.”

 

Anya stares at her like she’s lost her mind, but sees the stone-set of her jaw. She knows that look. The bartender gets close with another drink for Lexa, but Anya shoots him a glare that has him stumbling back to where he came from. She sighs and goes for the jugular as gently as possible. “You scared Clarke.”

 

As intended, there’s a split second where Anya sees the mighty, brash CEO deflate and go still with guilt. But Lexa is a professional, and the expression is gone in a flash.

 

“Clarke’s a big girl,” is all she says.

 

“She’s suffering, Lexa. She needs her friend.”

 

“She has friends. She has you. Octavia. Hell, even Bellamy.”

 

“She doesn’t want them. She wants you—”

 

“For fucks sake, Anya.” Lexa snaps, rounding on her. “She has a god damn boyfriend. If she needs emotional support she can get it from him.”

 

Anya softens her voice. “And what if it’s about her boyfriend that she needs support?”

 

Lexa, for a fleeting moment, considers. Anya can see her playing at the edge of intrigued, but then it’s gone.

 

“I’m not one of her fucking girlfriends, Anya. I’m not interested in sleep overs and pillow fights and late night gossip about shitty boys masquerading as men. If she wants a girlfriend to giggle and cry with, she needs to call Octavia. That’s not my job. My job was to help her land a steady relationship and that’s what I did. If there’s trouble in paradise, that’s not my problem. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna finish my drink and get back to doing what I do best.”

 

Disappointed in her more than anything, Anya shakes her head and stands, slapping down a twenty for her drink. “Well. I thoroughly hope you enjoy getting back to your old ways, Lex. I know you’ve missed it.”

 

Lexa grunts at her and goes back to her drink.

 

Anya rolls her eyes and slips on her coat. “While you’re fucking some nameless chick you have absolutely no interest in, try not to think about the fact that you’re breaking Clarke’s heart.” She leans in close, before walking away. “And when she kisses you when she comes, Lex, and you look down to see that it’s not Clarke, try not to think about the fact that you’re breaking yours.” She pats her on the back. “Have a good night, Champ.” She turns to the bar tender, ignoring Lexa’s stunned look. “If you serve her another drink, I’ll have your fucking lisence shoved so far up your ass you’ll never shit the same again. Got it?”

 

The man nods hastily despite Lexa’s growl of protest, and with that, Anya leaves, hoping to god that her guilt trip is enough to keep Lexa from getting into some girl’s bed.

 

//

 

Lexa’s hot and dazed in an unfamiliar room with her hands on the warm, bare skin of not-Clarke’s hips by the time she can’t swallow it down anymore. No longer is it exciting and thrilling and distracting. No longer is it the adrenaline rush or ego boost she used to crave almost as much as the booze. Now it’s nausea and guilt and anger and deep, penetrating sadness.

 

She tears her hands away and steps back, lips burning, chest heaving. The hazel of the girl’s eyes slams into her like a semi. She reels from it, aching and wanting to gasp as she mumbles something, an excuse of some kind, and ignores the hammer to her ribs when she yanks her shirt back on too quickly. She welcomes the chill of the night as she stumbles out of the room into the dark streets.

 

//

 

Clarke looks caught somewhere between surprised, angry and relieved when Lexa shows up at her door at two in the morning, bleary eyed and apologetic.

 

The first thing out of her mouth is swift and harsh. She regrets the way it hurts Lexa, but not the sentiment. “You are a cruel, selfish asshole sometimes, you know that?” She snaps halfway through Lexa’s slurring.

 

It silences the drooping apologies mid syllable.

 

Clarke leaves Lexa waiting in the doorway until she returns with a crumpled piece of paper. “’I need to clear my head. Thanks for everything?’ What the hell kind of note is that?”

 

Lexa looks to ground, sufficiently scolded but Clarke’s not done.

 

“You just got in a bad wreck. And had two major surgeries. You can’t just go off on your own with nothing but a note and refuse to pick up your phone. What the matter with you?”

 

“It’s been two months. I’m fine.”

 

“I don’t care!” Clarke snaps. “I’m _not_ fine. Do you know how scared I was? And then you show up here, in the middle of the night, plastered? What’s going on with you?”

 

“I just—needed to—“

 

“Clear your head. Yeah. I got that much.”

 

At a stalemate, Clarke too angry to continue and Lexa too drunk, they stand there staring. Clarke’s eyes sweep over Lexa’s body while Lexa inspects the specks of dirt on the floor, vision blurring in and out.

 

Lexa is so still, so quiet, that after several moments of nothing but tense air trapped between, Clarke think Lexa might actually have been drunk enough to fall asleep. When Lexa speaks, she wishes desperately that had been the case.

 

“I kissed someone.”

 

A direct punch to the chest might’ve been less painful. Even a slap to the face or a broken finger, or maybe a kick to the shin. All of those would’ve been easier to swallow than Lexa’s three, devastating words. It catches her so off-guard she actually stumbles backwards, though just a step. She swallows… _attempts_ to swallow…and recovers as best she can.

 

“Okay? Am I supposed to be interested in that information?”

 

Lexa, still staring at the floor, shrugs. “It was a mistake.”

 

“Was it?”

 

Lexa nods.

 

“Why?”

 

It’s barely a whisper. A meager, pathetic attempt at honesty. At a confession. “I didn’t have feelings for her.”

 

Clarke scoffs. “You don’t have feelings for anybody.”

 

Finally, _finally,_ Lexa raises her eyes. Glassy and hurt, they hold on Clarke. “That’s not true. I—“ Lexa swallows. She runs her hand over her face and into her hair, wondering when this had become her reality. When she’d become the type of person with feelings that rendered her stupid and nervous and speechless. She tries for another angle. “Anya said you’ve been hurting.”

 

“You left without a word.”

 

“I left a note.”

 

“That’s not a word.”

 

“That’s not why you’ve been hurting. You were hurting before. You got…clingy.”

 

Clarke frowns. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is that why you left? I got a little too human for you? A little too close? Did it scare you to be real with someone for once in your stupid, manipulative life?”

 

She deserves that. She knows. It doesn’t make it any easier to bare. Her eyes are back on the floor again, that confession still tingling on her tongue. She thinks through next possible words. Paths back to that open window. Possibilities for that confession.

 

“I was hurting because I was heart broken.”

 

This lifts Lexa’s gaze again. Her heart thuds faster in her chest and she wonders if all the clichés workout honestly like this one does.

 

“Finn cheated on me. Like… _really,_ really cheated on me. He’s been dating someone in Brooklyn for years. She’s pregnant with his kid. I was his distraction from his new dad anxiety.” Clarke laughs at herself.  “They’re getting married.”

 

It’s odd sensation—to be relieved and crushed all in one moment. To hear that someone has treated Clarke so disgustingly. But also to hear that maybe your opening has come back around. Then to realize that maybe it had never been an opening at all. Heartbroken, Clarke had said. She calculates it in her head, one devastating equation after another. To break a heart, you must first have it. Clarke had loved him. Maybe loves him. Suffering, Anya had said. To suffer, you must first care.

 

 _I care,_ Lexa thinks. This must be the suffering.

 

“Are you going to say anything?”

 

Lexa realizes her eyes are on the floor again. She pulls them up with great effort. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

 

“Do you remember what I asked you on the bed before dinner that one night? I asked you if I was hard to deal with. You told me no. Why did you tell me no?” There’s an accusation there, in amongst the pain, and it hurts Lexa’s head, because she’s not sure when this became her fault. But when she looks into Clarke’s imploring, blue eyes, it surely is.

 

“Because…you’re not. You’re not hard to deal with. You’re…lovely. I—“ _love you._

 

“You told me you could do it. Ten steps and you could do it. You said nobody is beyond repair, you just have to play the game.” A tear slides down Clarke’s cheek and Lexa has to clench her fist to keep from reaching out for it. “Well I played the came and I fucking burned, Lexa. You got me burned and then you…you just left.”

 

Too overwhelmed and drunk and heartbroken, Lexa shakes her head. “I just needed some space.”

 

“And I just needed a friend.” Clarke finally wipes the tear away, crosses her arms like a wall and Lexa knows she’s lost. That window shut and boarded up with plywood and rusty nails. “I got clingy because I was embarrassed and heart broken. I got clingy because when the rest of the world made me feel like shit about myself, you always managed to make it better. But then you—“

 

“Left.”

 

Clarke’s lip trembles and her frown dips dangerously low. “Yeah,” she manages to whisper. The silence allows Clarke’s eyes to well and Lexa can’t look at her anymore. “Why was me clinging such a horrible feeling to you?”

 

Lexa swallows.  “Because I’m not enough.”

 

“What does that even mean?”

 

“I couldn’t be what you needed.”

 

“I didn’t need anything special, Lexa. I just needed… _someone._ ”

 

Not her. Just someone. Could have been anyone, but Lexa had been convenient because she was there. That’s what she hears. That’s what finally does. If she concentrates she can almost feel the shards of her heart tinkle against her ribs at they fall to her feet. “I’m sorry,” is all she can muster. She doesn’t move because Clarke is still looking at her with those wide, blue eyes, but Lexa has never been more uncomfortable in her life. She wants to run so fast, so far away this moment becomes fainter than a dream upon waking. A ghost of a moment that’s easy to forget most of the time, but that lingers just enough to remind her never to do this again. “I need to go,” she whispers.

 

Clarke nods. “Yeah. I seem to have that affect.”

 

“No, Clarke, I—“

 

“Just leave, Lexa. It’s what you’re good at.”

 

It’s not Lexa who leaves though. Lexa stands fast, lump in her throat, heart in pieces scattered around her shoes among the specks of dirt. She stands there like that, wanting to die. Wanting to sob. Stands there as Clarke closes the door. Stands there as the footsteps on the other side thud off into silence. She stands there until her knees start to hurt and her cheeks start to itch from the tears that fall and dry and fall and dry.

 

//

 

Days pass before Clarke manages to pull herself out of bed and open the door for Anya. As her hand reaches for the door, she has the horrible memory of opening it find Lexa there. But it’s only Anya. Anya with her fierce eyes but soft hug.

 

//

 

“I didn’t tell her,” Clarke mutters.

 

Anya gives her a small, sympathetic smile and hands her a cup of tea. “I know.”

 

“I couldn’t tell her. Not after she just left. I lied and said I got clingy because I just needed someone.”

 

“Yeah. She told me.”

 

Clarke’s forehead furrows in thought as she plays with the tea tag trailing from her mug. “That was one of her stupid steps, you know,” she says after a while.

 

“What was?”

 

“Tell him your feelings. I was supposed to tell Finn I loved him.”

 

“But you didn’t.”

 

Clarke nods. “I know. It’s the only step I didn’t follow. Every other step was easy and it worked and then this one…just fucking blew up in my face.”  

 

“Maybe because the steps were never meant for Finn.”

 

Clarke’s brow furrows even further. “I don’t know what that means.”

 

“Yes, you do.”  

 

Clarke sips her tea and eyes Anya over the rim of her mug.

 

“You fell in love with Lexa because of the steps. See this one out. Complete them. Tell her you love her and live happily ever after—“

 

“Anya the steps are bullshit. It’s all manipulation, she said so herself—“

 

“No they’re not—“

 

“Yes they are—“

 

“No. Listen to me. You think Lexa is incapable of love like she wants everyone to thin? That’s bull. The steps don’t work because Lexa’s manipulative, the steps work because Lexa is better at loving than anyone I know. She feels more deeply than you and I could ever hope to, and the steps are her way of helping people get as close to what she’s capable of feeling for someone as they can. And right now she feels all that for _you._ Do you have any idea how special that is?”

 

Clarke stare, bewildered.

 

“Step 7. Tell her how you feel. Or don’t. And let this be another failed relationship. But don’t blame the steps. The steps work because of the person, not the other way around. Don’t let her tell you otherwise. But Clarke, listen to me,” Anya presses in, “if you don’t think you can keep up with that kind of love, and if you can’t at least try to love her to that same extent, and you hurt her, so help me god I will end you.”

 

Clarke glares. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

 

“That is me being your friend. Because believe me, I will be telling her the same exact thing. Now,” she leans back out, resting against the chair, “step 7?”  

 

Clarke nods. “Step 7.” Then she grins. “Part two.”


	8. Step 8: Follow through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the wait!!! Individual Medley took over a little bit.

A good investment, her father had told her one day as she perched on his knee as a seven-year old, is about patience and tenacity—a dichotomy of the most precise balance. Wait too long, and the stock will drop. Go to soon, and you’re stuck with something you don’t really want as you watch the prize fly past you into someone else’s hands. “Patience,” he had said, bopping her on the nose, “and tenacity.”

 

She paces outside of Clarke’s apartment, hands locked behind her ram-rod straight back. _Patience and tenacity._ She wonders if pacing outside of Clarke’s apartment, knocking every fifteen minutes, is what her dad had meant. Of course it is, she tells herself. This is exactly what he had meant.

 

Though, a part of her knows that, really, this is just a little bit weird.

 

“Patience and—“

 

“Tenacity.” She goes rigid, more rigid than she already was, and turns with a sheepish sort of smile to find Clarke staring at her, groceries in hand. “You’ve been muttering that for a few seconds now…did you know that?”

 

Lexa swallows, eyes sweeping over Clarke at their own volition. “I didn’t know you were—how long have you been standing there?”

 

“Just for a moment. You didn’t hear me walk up?”

 

“Deep in thought.”

 

Clarke nods, her bottom pulled in between her like it will stop her from saying things she’ll regret.

 

“I was going to—“

 

“I know you probably—“

 

They stop and grin embarrassed at the floor, both completely out of their element, but willing to stay.

 

“You first,” Lexa tries, but Clarke shakes her head and sets her groceries down.

 

“You’ve been waiting.”

 

“You don’t know that. I could have gotten here right before you.”

 

Clarke smiles and shakes her head as she takes Lexa in. “You’re disheveled and slightly sweaty which means you’ve been here pacing for at least ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”

 

Feeling well analyzed and transparent, Lexa’s head ducks under her hand as she tries to think back on the advice she herself had given countless times to girls in her situation.

 

“Actually, do you wanna come in? I should put my cold stuff in the fridge.”

 

Lexa’s eyes pop back up and she nods, grateful for the distraction. “Let me help,” she offers and grabs the bags before Clarke can protest. She picks her brain for how to start all the way into the apartment and to the kitchen, but all too soon everything is put away and Clarke is staring at her expectantly from the the island stools.

 

“I don’t know how to start,” she admits, picking at whatever she can finds on the counter.

 

“How about why you’ve been standing outside my door muttering?”

 

She thinks it’s a dig until she looks over and finds Clarke smiling at her, those eyes shining in that way that always made her heart flutter because Clarke is just so attentive and sweet. “I don’t know how to say it, that’s the thing.”

 

“Would you like me to start?”

 

Lexa wants to take the out more than anything. Her palms are sweaty and her fingers tremble and she’s more nervous than she’s every bene in her entire life, but her father had told her about tenacity and she’s determined. She shakes her head and forces herself to take a step closer; to give Clarke as much attentions as is being afforded to her.

 

“I ran last time. I don’t want to do that again.”

 

“You wouldn’t be running; you’d just be gathering your thoughts while I talk. It’s whatever you—“

 

“I like you,” Lexa blurts and promptly flushes hot and pink in her neck and cheeks. “I ran because I like you. I—fuck.” She tucks he face into her hands and tries to rub the embarrassment from her skin which only makes it worse. “I’m not good at this,” she mumbles and sneaks a peek at Clarke through her fingers.

 

Clarke sits there, as composed as ever, infuriatingly calm as Lexa’s insides detach and curl into a chaotic mess of nerves and frustration and love.

 

“I lose everyone important to me,” she murmurs. “I don’t know how to do this.”

 

“Come here.” Clarke opens her arms to Lexa’s slumping frame and envelopes her in a hug that Lexa is reluctant to fall into. “Relax,” she soothes, rubbing her back. “It’s just me.”

 

Lexa does as best she can, but it’s relaxing that clues her into Clarke’s trembling, which does nothing of course to sooth her. She springs back with confusion on her brow and tries to hold down a gaze that doesn’t want to be restrained. “Clarke? You’re shaking.”

 

Clarke nods and Lexa finally, finally, notices the tears in her eyes. “I’m scared,” Clarke murmurs, the shake reaching up into her throat and gripping her voice.

 

“Why are you scared?”

 

“You tell me.”

 

Lexa opens her mouth to speak, but closes it again when she processes what Clarke is asking of her. She shakes her head, her eye imploring for the answers she can tell are held in Clarke’s soft, vulnerable gaze—a gaze she can’t quite crack. Or one that she’s perhaps afraid to.

 

“You really don’t know?”

 

“Clarke—“

 

“Isn’t it obvious?”

 

When Lexa doesn’t answer, Clarke fidgets in frustration and peels herself out of Lexa’s grip. She’s a whirlwind of beautiful, perplexing complexity as she stands and paces around the kitchen. The two of them locked in this tango of feeling so much and not knowing how to express it. “Don’t you get it?” She tries again and Lexa remains at the island, stunned and frozen in her desperation to understand, to be there for Clarke like she hadn’t been before.

 

“I don’t—“ she shakes her head and tries to convey that she doesn’t understand, but wants to.

 

Clarke throws up her hands and gives up against the kitchen counter, leaning her hands against it and letting her head fall between her shoulders. “Your stupid steps,” she murmurs.

 

“The steps don’t mean anything,” Lexa tries, halfway between sitting and standing, unsure whether to remain or go to her. “They’re not reflection on who you are or—“

 

“They worked.”

 

Lexa freezes, her words caught in her throat. For an awful, terrible moment she tries to imagine what Clarke is saying. She imagines some kind of reconciliation between Clarke and Finn. Imagines Clarke having some epiphany in Lexa’s absence, and falling in love with someone else, all thanks to her stupid steps and her own inability to admit what she’s feeling. “I thought Finn…” she starts, timidly.

 

Clarke turns to her looking puzzled for a second before realization dawns on her. She shakes her head and stands, looking determined in a way that makes Lexa’s heart thump in anticipation. She feels the urge to fight and the urge to flee battling around inside of her as Clarke steps closer and crosses her arms looking strong, despite the tears threatening to spill over in her eyes.

 

“Not Finn, Lexa. You. The steps work. But it was all for you.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

Clarke huffs in frustration. “I’m not wording this right. I mean it was you. It was always you and the steps didn’t work before because it was Finn. But it should have been you. Do you understand?”

 

Lexa parses the words frantically in her head, trying to figure out what exactly it is Clarke is saying versus what she so desperately wants to hear. “I—I think. I don’t—“

 

“Fuck,” Clarke breathes, “Fuck it.” Clarke walks over to her and closes her eyes collecting herself. “I don’t want to say this again in the case that you don’t feel the same way, okay, so listen good. I…I love you. Thanks to your stupid steps, I fell in love with you months ago and I didn’t know what that meant and so I ignored it and I kept trying with Finn, but god. I love you. I’m in love with you. And I know you don’t do feelings, but I’m going crazy not telling you, so. I don’t—I don’t know what else to say, I—“

 

It’s like second nature, kissing Clarke. Like she was made to do nothing but this. Like her hands were forged for the sole purpose of cradling Clarke’s cheeks and holding her close. Like her thumbs were crafted to brush away Clarke’s tears. She kisses Clarke before she really even knows what she’s doing, her body reacting on want and instinct.

 

Clarke’s response is immediate. Her fingers tangle in Lexa’s hair and her hips push forward and she kisses Lexa like it’s all she’s ever wanted to do with her life. She can’t help the tears that spill over at the relief of it all, but Lexa is right there to catch them and wipe them away. And finally, finally she understands the purpose of the steps—the long draw, the chase, the perseverance and tenacity. The patience. The final reward of falling into the arms of the person you’ve longed. The person you’ve loved.

 

“This is my favorite step,” Lexa pants against Clarke’s lips, a small smile quirking in the corner of her own.

 

“Oh yeah?”

 

Lexa nods and presses their foreheads together, staying close and never wanting to let go again. “You have to promise me something, though, okay?” Clarke nods and tugs her closer by her pant pockets. “Stick around for the rest of the steps. I think I failed the first seven, but I can make it up to you. I’m here now. And I’m not going anywhere. I want to do this right.”

 

Clarke lets out a wet chuckle and nods, looping her arms around Lexa’s neck, finally content.

 

“Oh…and—“ Lexa takes a deep breath and lets go, “—I love you too.”


End file.
